Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 74% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 10 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 ∠4° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 2 days on 26 July 2012 at 08:56.
Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2012 after 4 days on 2 August 2012 at 03:27.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 4.2% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1972" and ∠1890".
The Moon is 10 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 155 of Meeus index or 1108 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 30 minutes and it is 1 hour and 14 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 1 hour and 14 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 55 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠248.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠283.7°.
14 days since point of apogee on 13 July 2012 at 16:47 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 29 July 2012 at 08:30 in ♐ Sagittarius.
The Moon is 363 565 km (225 909 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next day until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 367 318 km (228 241 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♐ Sagittarius at 10:34 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next descending node later on 11 August 2012 at 00:04 in ♊ Gemini.
12 days since the last northern standstill on 16 July 2012 at 01:18 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠21.665° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-21.592° at the point of next southern standstill on 29 July 2012 at 12:11 in ♐ Sagittarius.
At 10:34 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 4 days on 2 August 2012 at 03:27 in ♒ Aquarius 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