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 98% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 16 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 ♈ Aries

Moon is passing about ∠17° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 1 day on 22 September 2048 at 04:46.

Harvest Moon before 1 day

Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2048 after 28 days on 21 October 2048 at 18:25.

Moderate tide

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.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1833"

Lunar disc appears visually 4.2% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1833" and ∠1913".

Lunation 602 / 1555

The Moon is 16 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 602 of Meeus index or 1555 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.47 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 21 minutes and it is 28 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 1 hour and 23 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 46 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠276°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠276° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠307.5°.

Moon before apogee

7 days since point of perigee on 15 September 2048 at 15:06 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 5 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 29 September 2048 at 06:20 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 390 952 km

The Moon is 390 952 km (242 926 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 5 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 231 km (251 177 mi).

Moon before descending node

8 days after ascending node on 15 September 2048 at 06:06 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 5 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 28 September 2048 at 18:16 in ♊ Gemini.

Moon before northern standstill

8 days since the last southern standstill on 14 September 2048 at 22:20 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-23.317° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠23.189° at the point of next northern standstill on 28 September 2048 at 11:46 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

8 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 14 days

In 14 days on 7 October 2048 at 17:45 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