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

Waning Gibbous in Sagittarius

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 85% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 18 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 ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing about ∠17° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 3 days on 18 April 2011 at 02:44.

Pink Moon before 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2011 after 25 days on 17 May 2011 at 11:09.

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 ∠1901"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.4% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1901" and ∠1909".

Lunation 139 / 1092

The Moon is 18 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 139 of Meeus index or 1092 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.68 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 18 minutes and it is 2 hours and 6 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to decrease with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at perigee (∠0° or ∠360°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 34 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 29 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠190.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠190.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠216.7°.

Moon after perigee

4 days since point of perigee on 17 April 2011 at 05:59 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 8 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 29 April 2011 at 18:02 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 377 107 km

The Moon is 377 107 km (234 323 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 8 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 043 km (252 303 mi).

Moon before ascending node

11 days after descending node on 9 April 2011 at 12:48 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 22 April 2011 at 01:05 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon at southern standstill

At 13:40 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-23.498°. Over the upcoming 14 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠23.421° at the point of next northern standstill in ♊ Gemini on 6 May 2011 at 03:54.

Draconic month

26 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 11 days

In 11 days on 3 May 2011 at 06:51 in ♉ Taurus 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