Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 71% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 9 days young.
The moon rises in the afternoon and sets after midnight to early morning. It is visible to the southeast in early evening and it is up for most of the night.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing first ∠0° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 2 days on 26 September 2009 at 04:50.
Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2009 after 5 days on 4 October 2009 at 06:10.
There is low ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at big angle, so their combined tidal force is weak.
Lunar disc appears visually 8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1915".
The Moon is 9 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 120 of Meeus index or 1073 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 49 minutes and it is 2 hours and 52 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increase with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at apogee (∠180°).
The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 55 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 14 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠39.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠65.2°.
Moon is at apogee at 03:33 about 11 days since last perigee on 16 September 2009 at 07:55 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 15 days until point of next perigee on 13 October 2009 at 12:28 in ♌ Leo.
This apogee Moon is 404 432 km (251 302 mi) away from Earth. It is 976 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 2 277 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.
Moon is in ascending node in ♑ Capricorn at 06:52 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next descending node later on 11 October 2009 at 23:01 in ♋ Cancer.
3 days since the last southern standstill on 25 September 2009 at 04:03 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-26.188° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠26.057° at the point of next northern standstill on 9 October 2009 at 09:49 in ♊ Gemini.
At 06:52 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.
In 5 days on 4 October 2009 at 06:10 in ♈ Aries the Moon is going to be in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment.
Parts of this Lunar Calendar are based on Planetary Ephemeris Data Courtesy of Fred Espenak, www.Astropixels.com
Moon phase image credit to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, svs.gsfc.nasa.gov
