Waning Gibbous Moon
Waning Gibbous MoonImage credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.(large image)

Waning Gibbous in Cancer

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 74% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 19 days old.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises in the evening and sets in the morning. It is visible to the southwest and it is high in the sky after midnight.

Moon phases on nearby dates

Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.

Upcoming main moon phases

Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.

Moon phase and lunation details

Moon in ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing about ∠17° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

4 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 4 days on 2 November 2009 at 19:14.

Beaver Moon before 4 days

Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2009 after 24 days on 2 December 2009 at 07:30.

Neap tide

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.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1968"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.6% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1968" and ∠1937".

Lunation 121 / 1074

The Moon is 19 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 121 of Meeus index or 1074 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.57 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 41 minutes and it is 3 hours and 7 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°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 57 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 6 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠65.2°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠65.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠99.9°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 07:30 about 12 days since last apogee on 25 October 2009 at 23:18 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 15 days until point of next apogee on 22 November 2009 at 20:07 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 368 900 km

This perigee Moon is 368 900 km (229 224 mi) away from Earth. It is 6 392 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 1 456 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon in descending node

Moon is in descending node in ♋ Cancer at 23:25 crossing the ecliptic from North to South. Lunar position remains south of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next ascending node later on 21 November 2009 at 11:34 in ♑ Capricorn.

Moon after northern standstill

1 day since the last northern standstill on 5 November 2009 at 15:31 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠25.856° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠-25.795° at the point of next southern standstill on 18 November 2009 at 19:53 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

13 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is navigating from the middle to the last part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 9 days

In 9 days on 16 November 2009 at 19:14 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is going to be in a New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Moon-Earth syzygy alignment.

Lunar calendar

Sources and credits

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