Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 96% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 13 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 ∠9° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 6 days on 18 August 2018 at 07:49.
Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2018 after 1 day on 26 August 2018 at 11:56.
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 7.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1769" and ∠1898".
The Moon is 13 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 230 of Meeus index or 1183 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 4 minutes and it is 1 hour and 41 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 40 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 29 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 ∠11.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠28°.
1 day since point of apogee on 23 August 2018 at 11:23 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 14 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 8 September 2018 at 01:21 in ♌ Leo.
The Moon is 405 276 km (251 827 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 14 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 361 355 km (224 536 mi).
Moon is in descending node in ♒ Aquarius at 04:51 crossing the ecliptic from North to South. Lunar position remains south of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next ascending node later on 6 September 2018 at 22:42 in ♋ Cancer.
2 days since the last southern standstill on 22 August 2018 at 02:58 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-20.773° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠20.837° at the point of next northern standstill on 5 September 2018 at 06:56 in ♋ Cancer.
13 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♋ Cancer the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 1 day on 26 August 2018 at 11:56 in ♓ Pisces 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