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

Waxing Gibbous in Libra

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 99% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 14 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 ♎ Libra

Moon is passing about ∠21° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector.

5 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 5 days on 16 April 2081 at 17:31.

Pink Moon after 1 day

Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2081 after 1 day on 23 April 2081 at 10:20.

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 ∠1938"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.6% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1938" and ∠1908".

Lunation 1005 / 1958

The Moon is 14 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 1005 of Meeus index or 1958 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.58 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 54 minutes and it is 3 hours and 1 minute longer than the upcoming lunation's length. 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 10 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 53 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠231.2°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠231.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠265.8°.

Moon after perigee

1 day since point of perigee on 20 April 2081 at 18:04 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 10 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 2 May 2081 at 14:12 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 369 833 km

The Moon is 369 833 km (229 804 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 10 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 484 km (251 335 mi).

Moon after descending node

1 day after descending node on 20 April 2081 at 16:02 in ♍ Virgo 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 4 May 2081 at 10:34 in ♓ Pisces.

Moon before southern standstill

7 days since the last northern standstill on 14 April 2081 at 16:08 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.586° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠-28.521° at the point of next southern standstill on 27 April 2081 at 11:19 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 1 day

In 1 day on 23 April 2081 at 10:20 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