Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 72% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 9 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 passing about ∠23° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 2 days on 16 September 2056 at 09:50.
Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2056 after 5 days on 23 September 2056 at 19:34.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 0.4% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1918" and ∠1910".
The Moon is 9 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 701 of Meeus index or 1654 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 13 minutes and it is 7 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2056. 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 31 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 38 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 ∠317.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠337.6°.
6 days since point of perigee on 12 September 2056 at 10:34 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 9 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 28 September 2056 at 07:58 in ♉ Taurus.
The Moon is 373 740 km (232 231 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 9 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 424 km (251 919 mi).
Moon is in descending node in ♑ Capricorn at 05:52 crossing the ecliptic from North to South. Lunar position remains south of if for the upcoming 14 days until Moon's next ascending node later on 2 October 2056 at 15:45 in ♋ Cancer.
1 day since the last southern standstill on 17 September 2056 at 16:12 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-22.234° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 13 days to face maximum declination of ∠22.376° at the point of next northern standstill on 2 October 2056 at 03:51 in ♋ Cancer.
13 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♋ Cancer the Moon is navigating from the middle to the last part of the lunar cycle.
In 5 days on 23 September 2056 at 19:34 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.
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
