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

Waxing Gibbous in Aquarius

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 86% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 11 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 ♒ Aquarius

Moon is passing about ∠7° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 3 days on 8 September 2073 at 16:19.

Harvest Moon after 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2073 after 3 days on 16 September 2073 at 08:52.

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 ∠1843"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.4% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1843" and ∠1907".

Lunation 911 / 1864

The Moon is 11 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 911 of Meeus index or 1864 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.35 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 29 minutes and it is 23 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2073. 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 4 hours and 15 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 54 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠334.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠334.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠351.1°.

Moon before apogee

8 days since point of perigee on 3 September 2073 at 14:51 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 6 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 19 September 2073 at 03:23 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 388 966 km

The Moon is 388 966 km (241 692 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 6 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 134 km (252 360 mi).

Moon before descending node

11 days after ascending node on 31 August 2073 at 18:55 in ♌ Leo the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 13 September 2073 at 16:02 in ♒ Aquarius.

Moon after southern standstill

2 days since the last southern standstill on 10 September 2073 at 08:21 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-19.604° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠19.692° at the point of next northern standstill on 25 September 2073 at 01:43 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

11 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♌ Leo the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 16 September 2073 at 08:52 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