Waxing Gibbous Moon
Waxing Gibbous MoonImage credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.(large image)

Waxing Gibbous in Pisces

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 93% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 12 days young.

Moonrise and moonset

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.

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 ♓ Pisces

Moon is passing first ∠4° of ♓ Pisces tropical zodiac sector.

4 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 4 days on 22 September 2012 at 19:41.

Harvest Moon after 2 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2012 after 2 days on 30 September 2012 at 03:19.

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 ∠1865"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1865" and ∠1915".

Lunation 157 / 1110

The Moon is 12 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 157 of Meeus index or 1110 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.41 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 52 minutes and it is 13 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2012. 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 2 hours and 52 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 17 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠312.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠312.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠334.3°.

Moon before apogee

8 days since point of perigee on 19 September 2012 at 02:52 in ♏ Scorpio the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 5 October 2012 at 00:43 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 384 258 km

The Moon is 384 258 km (238 767 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 7 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 162 km (251 756 mi).

Moon before descending node

6 days after ascending node on 20 September 2012 at 12:54 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 4 October 2012 at 05:15 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon after southern standstill

5 days since the last southern standstill on 22 September 2012 at 00:11 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-21.135° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠21.024° at the point of next northern standstill on 6 October 2012 at 01:40 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

6 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 2 days

In 2 days on 30 September 2012 at 03:19 in ♈ Aries 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.

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