Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 99% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 14 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 about ∠24° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 6 days on 18 May 2013 at 04:35.
Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2013 after 1 day on 25 May 2013 at 04:25.
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 3.2% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1955" and ∠1894".
The Moon is 14 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 165 of Meeus index or 1118 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 28 minutes and it is 10 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2013. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increase with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at apogee (∠180°).
The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 44 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 19 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 ∠143.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠168.8°.
10 days since point of apogee on 13 May 2013 at 13:31 in ♊ Gemini 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 26 May 2013 at 01:45 in ♐ Sagittarius.
The Moon is 366 614 km (227 803 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next day until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 375 km (222 684 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♏ Scorpio at 00:40 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 12 days until Moon's next descending node later on 6 June 2013 at 00:59 in ♉ Taurus.
11 days since the last northern standstill on 12 May 2013 at 12:30 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠20.170° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-20.182° at the point of next southern standstill on 26 May 2013 at 04:47 in ♐ Sagittarius.
At 00:40 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 25 May 2013 at 04:25 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