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

Waning Gibbous in Libra

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 87% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 18 days old.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises in the evening and sets in the morning. It is visible to the southwest and it is high in the sky after midnight.

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 ♎ Libra

Moon is passing about ∠25° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 3 days on 27 February 2021 at 08:17.

Snow Moon before 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2021 after 26 days on 28 March 2021 at 18:48.

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 ∠1966"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.6% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1966" and ∠1936".

Lunation 261 / 1214

The Moon is 18 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 261 of Meeus index or 1214 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.64 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 15 minutes and it is 55 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 31 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 32 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠87°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠87° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠124.3°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 05:19 about 11 days since last apogee on 18 February 2021 at 10:22 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 15 days until point of next apogee on 18 March 2021 at 05:04 in ♉ Taurus.

Distance to Moon 365 422 km

This perigee Moon is 365 422 km (227 063 mi) away from Earth. It is 2 914 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 4 934 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before descending node

9 days after ascending node on 21 February 2021 at 01:44 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 6 March 2021 at 00:56 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon before southern standstill

7 days since the last northern standstill on 23 February 2021 at 00:12 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠25.056° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠-25.161° at the point of next southern standstill on 7 March 2021 at 20:45 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

9 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 10 days

In 10 days on 13 March 2021 at 10:21 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is going to be in a New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Moon-Earth 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