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

Waxing Gibbous in Aquarius

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 ♒ Aquarius

Moon is passing first ∠0° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.

5 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 5 days on 16 September 2018 at 23:15.

Harvest Moon after 2 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2018 after 2 days on 25 September 2018 at 02:53.

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 ∠1777"

Lunar disc appears visually 7.3% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1777" and ∠1912".

Lunation 231 / 1184

The Moon is 12 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 231 of Meeus index or 1184 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.41 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 45 minutes and it is 2 hours 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 2 hours and 59 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 10 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠28°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠28° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠49.6°.

Moon after apogee

2 days since point of apogee on 20 September 2018 at 00:54 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 13 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 5 October 2018 at 22:29 in ♌ Leo.

Distance to Moon 403 262 km

The Moon is 403 262 km (250 575 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 13 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 366 396 km (227 668 mi).

Moon after descending node

2 days after descending node on 20 September 2018 at 09:30 in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 11 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 4 October 2018 at 03:10 in ♌ Leo.

Moon after southern standstill

4 days since the last southern standstill on 18 September 2018 at 09:35 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-20.909° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠21.037° at the point of next northern standstill on 2 October 2018 at 13:03 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

15 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.

Syzygy in 2 days

In 2 days on 25 September 2018 at 02:53 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