Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 65% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 9 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 ∠12° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 1 day on 16 July 2013 at 03:18.
Next Full Moon is the Buck Moon of July 2013 after 5 days on 22 July 2013 at 18:15.
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 2.4% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1935" and ∠1888".
The Moon is 9 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 167 of Meeus index or 1120 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 36 minutes and it is 51 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 52 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 11 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 ∠191.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠216.9°.
10 days since point of apogee on 7 July 2013 at 00:36 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 21 July 2013 at 20:27 in ♑ Capricorn.
The Moon is 370 528 km (230 235 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 4 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 402 km (222 701 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♏ Scorpio at 14:58 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 30 July 2013 at 05:50 in ♉ Taurus.
11 days since the last northern standstill on 6 July 2013 at 02:09 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠20.170° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠-20.097° at the point of next southern standstill on 20 July 2013 at 03:12 in ♐ Sagittarius.
At 14:58 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 5 days on 22 July 2013 at 18:15 in ♑ Capricorn 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