Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 99% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 13 days young.
The moon rises in the afternoon and sets after midnight to early morning. It is visible to the southeast in early evening and it is up for most of the night.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing first ∠0° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 5 days on 28 May 2012 at 20:16.
Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2012 after 1 day on 4 June 2012 at 11:12.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 4.1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1971" and ∠1891".
The Moon is 13 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 153 of Meeus index or 1106 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 15 minutes and it is 1 hour and 53 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 31 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 32 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠191.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠217.1°.
Moon is at perigee at 13:19 about 14 days since last apogee on 19 May 2012 at 16:13 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 12 days until point of next apogee on 16 June 2012 at 01:24 in ♉ Taurus.
This perigee Moon is 358 483 km (222 751 mi) away from Earth. It is 4 025 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 11 873 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.
Moon is in ascending node in ♏ Scorpio at 20:38 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 14 days until Moon's next descending node later on 17 June 2012 at 15:43 in ♉ Taurus.
12 days since the last northern standstill on 22 May 2012 at 11:13 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠21.709° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-21.714° at the point of next southern standstill on 4 June 2012 at 17:05 in ♐ Sagittarius.
At 20:38 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.
In 1 day on 4 June 2012 at 11:12 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is going to be in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment.
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