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

Waxing Gibbous in Sagittarius

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 81% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 10 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 ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing about ∠7° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 3 days on 16 July 2078 at 23:48.

Buck Moon after 4 days

Next Full Moon is the Buck Moon of July 2078 after 4 days on 24 July 2078 at 22:07.

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 ∠1779"

Lunar disc appears visually 6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1779" and ∠1888".

Lunation 971 / 1924

The Moon is 10 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 971 of Meeus index or 1924 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.4 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 43 minutes and it is 2 hours and 24 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 3 hours and 1 minute shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 8 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠50.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠50.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠80.3°.

Moon after apogee

2 days since point of apogee on 18 July 2078 at 01:21 in ♏ Scorpio the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 11 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 1 August 2078 at 02:41 in ♉ Taurus.

Distance to Moon 402 853 km

The Moon is 402 853 km (250 321 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 11 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 369 774 km (229 767 mi).

Moon after descending node

1 day after descending node on 18 July 2078 at 20:35 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 11 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 1 August 2078 at 08:13 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon before southern standstill

11 days since the last northern standstill on 8 July 2078 at 17:05 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠27.043° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠-27.072° at the point of next southern standstill on 22 July 2078 at 23:47 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

15 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♉ Taurus the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 4 days

In 4 days on 24 July 2078 at 22:07 in ♑ Capricorn 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