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 72% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 20 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 is entering ♈ Aries

Moon is passing first ∠0° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

5 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 5 days on 13 August 2011 at 18:58.

Sturgeon Moon before 5 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2011 after 23 days on 12 September 2011 at 09:27.

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 ∠1770"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.9% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1770" and ∠1896".

Lunation 143 / 1096

The Moon is 20 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 143 of Meeus index or 1096 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.35 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 24 minutes and it is 19 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 20 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 49 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠312.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠312.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠333.4°.

Moon after apogee

1 day since point of apogee on 18 August 2011 at 16:23 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 11 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 30 August 2011 at 17:35 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 404 925 km

The Moon is 404 925 km (251 609 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 11 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 360 858 km (224 227 mi).

Moon before descending node

10 days after ascending node on 9 August 2011 at 06:35 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 23 August 2011 at 17:23 in ♊ Gemini.

Moon before northern standstill

10 days since the last southern standstill on 8 August 2011 at 23:15 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-23.270° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠23.149° at the point of next northern standstill on 23 August 2011 at 12:17 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 9 days

In 9 days on 29 August 2011 at 03:04 in ♍ Virgo 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