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

Waxing Gibbous in Sagittarius

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 94% 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 in ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing about ∠15° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

5 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 5 days on 1 July 2017 at 00:51.

Buck Moon after 2 days

Next Full Moon is the Buck Moon of July 2017 after 2 days on 9 July 2017 at 04:07.

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 ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1887".

Lunation 216 / 1169

The Moon is 12 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 216 of Meeus index or 1169 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.3 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 15 minutes and it is 1 hour and 30 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. 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°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 5 hours and 29 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 40 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠11°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠11° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠27.9°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 04:27 about 12 days since last perigee on 23 June 2017 at 10:49 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 15 days until point of next perigee on 21 July 2017 at 17:09 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 405 934 km

This apogee Moon is 405 934 km (252 236 mi) away from Earth. It is 526 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 775 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon before descending node

8 days after ascending node on 27 June 2017 at 16:26 in ♌ Leo the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 5 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 12 July 2017 at 05:17 in ♒ Aquarius.

Moon before southern standstill

12 days since the last northern standstill on 24 June 2017 at 11:12 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠19.434° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-19.440° at the point of next southern standstill on 8 July 2017 at 10:49 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

8 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♌ Leo the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 2 days

In 2 days on 9 July 2017 at 04:07 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.

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