Here you see yesterday afternoon’s waxing gibbous moon in our southeastern sky, 248,147 miles away from Earth. The low winter sun is at the right angle to light the orb up brighter than its surrounding sky.
The moon is “waxing” when it has an illuminated part that is in the process of increasing in size. It is “gibbous” when that illuminated part is 50.1 percent to 99.9 percent of the moon. That’s when the lighted area of the moon is oval (“humped”) or round, but the moon is not yet 100 percent illuminated from our perspective (“full”). The moon shown here was 61.1 percent illuminated, according to the lunar tables.
This month’s full moon, named the wolf full moon by early settlers, will rise on January 17, 2022, at 3:55 p.m. in our east-southeast sky, according to those tables. If we use a compass pointed north, with east at 90 degrees and South at 180, the moon will rise from the direction of 117 degrees on the compass. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 10, 2021, at 3:34 p.m.)