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

Waning Gibbous in Sagittarius

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 95% 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 in ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing about ∠5° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 2 days on 26 April 2051 at 02:19.

Pink Moon before 2 days

Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2051 after 27 days on 25 May 2051 at 17:35.

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 ∠1807"

Lunar disc appears visually 5.3% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1807" and ∠1905".

Lunation 634 / 1587

The Moon is 17 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 634 of Meeus index or 1587 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.35 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 30 minutes and it is 3 minutes longer 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 4 hours and 14 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 55 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠6.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠6.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠23.1°.

Moon after apogee

4 days since point of apogee on 23 April 2051 at 15:59 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 10 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 9 May 2051 at 01:26 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 396 553 km

The Moon is 396 553 km (246 407 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 10 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 360 140 km (223 781 mi).

Moon after ascending node

2 days after ascending node on 25 April 2051 at 19:39 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 9 May 2051 at 06:46 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon before southern standstill

13 days since the last northern standstill on 15 April 2051 at 05:12 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠19.160° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-19.162° at the point of next southern standstill on 29 April 2051 at 20:50 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

2 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♎ Libra the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 11 days

In 11 days on 10 May 2051 at 10:29 in ♉ Taurus 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