Waning
Gibbous ♈ Aries
Moon phase on 17 August 2011 Wednesday is Waning Gibbous, 18 days old Moon is in Aries.
Share this page: twitter facebook linkedinWaning Gibbous is the lunar phase on . Seen from Earth, illuminated fraction of the Moon surface is 87% and getting smaller. The 18 days old Moon is in ♈ Aries.
Thursday Thu
Friday Fri
Saturday Sat
Sunday Sun
Monday Mon
Tuesday Tue
Wednesday Wed
Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 3 days on 13 August 2011 at 18:58.
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 ∠6° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.
Lunar disc appears visually 6.9% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1769" and ∠1895".
Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2011 after 25 days on 12 September 2011 at 09:27.
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.
The Moon is 18 days old. Earth's natural satellite is moving from the middle to the last part of current synodic month. This is lunation 143 of Meeus index or 1096 from Brown series.
Length of current 143 lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 24 minutes. It is 19 minutes longer than next lunation 144 length.
Length of current synodic month is 4 hours and 20 minutes shorter than the mean length of synodic month, but it is still 1 hour and 49 minutes longer, compared to 21st century shortest.
This lunation true anomaly is ∠312.1°. At the beginning of next synodic month true anomaly will be ∠333.4°. 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°).
14 days after point of perigee on 2 August 2011 at 20:59 in ♍ Virgo. The lunar orbit is getting wider, while the Moon is moving outward the Earth. It will keep this direction for the next day, until it get to the point of next apogee on 18 August 2011 at 16:23 in ♈ Aries.
Moon is 405 098 km (251 716 mi) away from Earth on this date. Moon moves farther next day until apogee, when Earth-Moon distance will reach 405 161 km (251 755 mi).
8 days after its ascending node on 9 August 2011 at 06:35 in ♐ Sagittarius, the Moon is following the northern part of its orbit for the next 6 days, until it will cross the ecliptic from North to South in descending node on 23 August 2011 at 17:23 in ♊ Gemini.
8 days after beginning of current draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius, the Moon is moving from the beginning to the first part of it.
8 days after previous South standstill on 8 August 2011 at 23:15 in ♐ Sagittarius, when Moon has reached southern declination of ∠-23.270°. Next 6 days the lunar orbit moves northward to face North declination of ∠23.149° in the next northern standstill on 23 August 2011 at 12:17 in ♊ Gemini.
After 11 days on 29 August 2011 at 03:04 in ♍ Virgo, the Moon will be in New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and this alignment forms next Sun-Moon-Earth syzygy.