Waning
Gibbous ♐ Sagittarius
Moon phase on 18 May 2011 Wednesday is Waning Gibbous, 16 days old Moon is in Sagittarius.
Share this page: twitter facebook linkedinWaning Gibbous is the lunar phase on . Seen from Earth, illuminated fraction of the Moon surface is 99% and getting smaller. The 16 days old Moon is in ♐ Sagittarius.
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Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 1 day on 17 May 2011 at 11:09.
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 is passing about ∠11° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.
Lunar disc appears visually 1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1915" and ∠1897".
Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2011 after 28 days on 15 June 2011 at 20:13.
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.
The Moon is 16 days old. Earth's natural satellite is moving from the middle to the last part of current synodic month. This is lunation 140 of Meeus index or 1093 from Brown series.
Length of current 140 lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 12 minutes. It is 2 hours and 21 minutes longer than next lunation 141 length.
Length of current synodic month is 1 hour and 28 minutes longer than the mean length of synodic month, but it is still 5 hours and 35 minutes shorter, compared to 21st century longest.
This lunation true anomaly is ∠216.7°. At the beginning of next synodic month true anomaly will be ∠248.4°. The length of upcoming synodic months will keep decreasing since the true anomaly gets closer to the value of New Moon at point of perigee (∠0° or ∠360°).
3 days after point of perigee on 15 May 2011 at 11:18 in ♎ Libra. The lunar orbit is getting wider, while the Moon is moving outward the Earth. It will keep this direction for the next 8 days, until it get to the point of next apogee on 27 May 2011 at 09:58 in ♈ Aries.
Moon is 374 275 km (232 564 mi) away from Earth on this date. Moon moves farther next 8 days until apogee, when Earth-Moon distance will reach 405 006 km (251 659 mi).
11 days after its descending node on 6 May 2011 at 14:54 in ♊ Gemini, the Moon is following the southern part of its orbit for the next day, until it will cross the ecliptic from South to North in ascending node on 19 May 2011 at 09:03 in ♐ Sagittarius.
26 days after beginning of current draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius, the Moon is moving from the second to the final part of it.
At 23:26 on this date the Moon is meeting its South standstill point, when it will reach southern declination of ∠-23.403°. Next 14 days the lunar orbit will move in opposite northward direction to face North declination of ∠23.393° in its northern standstill point on 2 June 2011 at 09:54 in ♊ Gemini.
After 14 days on 1 June 2011 at 21:03 in ♊ Gemini, the Moon will be in New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and this alignment forms next Sun-Moon-Earth syzygy.