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

Waxing Gibbous in Capricorn

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 70% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 9 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 ♑ Capricorn

Moon is passing first ∠3° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 2 days on 30 August 2044 at 09:18.

Harvest Moon after 5 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2044 after 5 days on 7 September 2044 at 11:24.

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 ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 7.3% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1902".

Lunation 552 / 1505

The Moon is 9 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 552 of Meeus index or 1505 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.41 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 57 minutes and it is 2 hours and 36 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 47 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 22 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠34°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠34° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠57.9°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 20:26 about 11 days since last perigee on 20 August 2044 at 23:01 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 16 days until point of next perigee on 17 September 2044 at 12:14 in ♌ Leo.

Distance to Moon 404 738 km

This apogee Moon is 404 738 km (251 493 mi) away from Earth. It is 670 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 1 971 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

8 days after descending node on 23 August 2044 at 18:33 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 5 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 7 September 2044 at 03:06 in ♓ Pisces.

Moon after southern standstill

1 day since the last southern standstill on 31 August 2044 at 23:59 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.478° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 13 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.463° at the point of next northern standstill on 14 September 2044 at 23:32 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

21 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♓ Pisces the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 5 days

In 5 days on 7 September 2044 at 11:24 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.

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