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

Waning Gibbous in Aries

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 94% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 17 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 is entering ♈ Aries

Moon is passing first ∠0° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 2 days on 20 September 2021 at 23:55.

Harvest Moon before 2 days

Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2021 after 27 days on 20 October 2021 at 14:57.

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 ∠1789"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1789" and ∠1913".

Lunation 268 / 1221

The Moon is 17 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 268 of Meeus index or 1221 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.43 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 14 minutes and it is 5 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°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 30 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 39 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠297.8°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠297.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠323.3°.

Moon before apogee

12 days since point of perigee on 11 September 2021 at 10:05 in ♏ Scorpio the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 3 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 26 September 2021 at 21:44 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 400 626 km

The Moon is 400 626 km (248 937 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 3 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 641 km (251 432 mi).

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 12 September 2021 at 16:35 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 26 September 2021 at 07:33 in ♊ Gemini.

Moon before northern standstill

8 days since the last southern standstill on 15 September 2021 at 03:48 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.980° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠26.109° at the point of next northern standstill on 29 September 2021 at 08:26 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 12 days

In 12 days on 6 October 2021 at 11:05 in ♎ Libra 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