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

Waning Gibbous in Capricorn

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 86% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 18 days old.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises in the evening and sets in the morning. It is visible to the southwest and it is high in the sky after midnight.

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 ♑ Capricorn

Moon is passing about ∠20° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 3 days on 22 May 2081 at 20:26.

Flower Moon before 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2081 after 25 days on 21 June 2081 at 07:32.

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 ∠1799"

Lunar disc appears visually 5.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1799" and ∠1894".

Lunation 1006 / 1959

The Moon is 18 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 1006 of Meeus index or 1959 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.45 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 53 minutes and it is 2 hours and 10 minutes 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 51 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 18 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠265.8°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠265.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠298.3°.

Moon before apogee

8 days since point of perigee on 17 May 2081 at 14:15 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 3 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 30 May 2081 at 09:21 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 398 386 km

The Moon is 398 386 km (247 546 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 3 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 064 km (251 074 mi).

Moon before ascending node

8 days after descending node on 17 May 2081 at 20:00 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 5 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 31 May 2081 at 13:42 in ♓ Pisces.

Moon after southern standstill

1 day since the last southern standstill on 24 May 2081 at 19:52 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.376° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.340° at the point of next northern standstill on 8 June 2081 at 04:25 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

22 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 11 days

In 11 days on 7 June 2081 at 09:01 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is going to be in a New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Moon-Earth 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