Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 98% 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 leaving the last ∠1° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♏ Scorpio later.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 6 days on 27 April 2023 at 21:20.
Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2023 after 1 day on 5 May 2023 at 17:34.
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 3.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1845" and ∠1903".
The Moon is 13 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 288 of Meeus index or 1241 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 41 minutes and it is 1 hour and 3 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 1 hour and 3 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 6 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 ∠59.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠92.6°.
6 days since point of apogee on 28 April 2023 at 06:43 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 6 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 11 May 2023 at 04:57 in ♒ Aquarius.
The Moon is 388 583 km (241 454 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 6 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 369 345 km (229 500 mi).
Moon is in descending node in ♎ Libra at 21:57 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 17 May 2023 at 19:36 in ♈ Aries.
9 days since the last northern standstill on 25 April 2023 at 05:53 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠27.957° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠-27.937° at the point of next southern standstill on 9 May 2023 at 09:01 in ♑ Capricorn.
14 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♉ Taurus the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 1 day on 5 May 2023 at 17:34 in ♏ Scorpio 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