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

Waning Gibbous in Aries

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 99% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 15 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 ♈ Aries

Moon is passing about ∠14° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 1 day on 23 September 2010 at 09:17.

Harvest Moon before 1 day

Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2010 after 28 days on 23 October 2010 at 01:36.

Moderate tide

There is medium ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at very acute angle, so their combined tidal force is moderate.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1785"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.9% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1785" and ∠1913".

Lunation 132 / 1085

The Moon is 15 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 132 of Meeus index or 1085 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.34 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 15 minutes and it is 1 hour 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°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 29 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 40 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠4.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠4.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠20.4°.

Moon after apogee

3 days since point of apogee on 21 September 2010 at 08:03 in ♓ Pisces the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 12 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 6 October 2010 at 13:41 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 401 621 km

The Moon is 401 621 km (249 556 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 12 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 359 453 km (223 354 mi).

Moon before descending node

7 days after ascending node on 16 September 2010 at 13:56 in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 1 October 2010 at 02:42 in ♋ Cancer.

Moon before northern standstill

9 days since the last southern standstill on 14 September 2010 at 23:47 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-24.710° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠24.555° at the point of next northern standstill on 29 September 2010 at 17:37 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 13 days

In 13 days on 7 October 2010 at 18:44 in ♎ Libra 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