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

Waxing Gibbous in Virgo

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 71% 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 in ♍ Virgo

Moon is passing about ∠17° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 2 days on 9 May 2068 at 04:47.

Flower Moon after 5 days

Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2068 after 5 days on 17 May 2068 at 05:35.

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 7.2% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1899".

Lunation 845 / 1798

The Moon is 9 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 845 of Meeus index or 1798 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.41 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 56 minutes and it is 1 hour and 12 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 48 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 21 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠39.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠39.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠66°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 03:18 about 11 days since last perigee on 29 April 2068 at 06:56 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 14 days until point of next perigee on 26 May 2068 at 09:16 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 404 661 km

This apogee Moon is 404 661 km (251 445 mi) away from Earth. It is 747 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 2 048 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

8 days after descending node on 3 May 2068 at 04:02 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 17 May 2068 at 14:48 in ♏ Scorpio.

Moon after northern standstill

7 days since the last northern standstill on 4 May 2068 at 08:19 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠21.452° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠-21.444° at the point of next southern standstill on 18 May 2068 at 20:10 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 5 days

In 5 days on 17 May 2068 at 05:35 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.

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