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

Waxing Crescent in Virgo

Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 1% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 1 day young.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises in the morning and sets in the evening. It is visible toward the southwest in early evening.

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 ♍ Virgo

Moon is passing about ∠13° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 1 day on 25 August 2014 at 14:13.

Harvest Moon after 13 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2014 after 13 days on 9 September 2014 at 01:38.

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 ∠1776"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1776" and ∠1899".

Lunation 181 / 1134

The Moon is 1 day young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 181 of Meeus index or 1134 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.67 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 1 minute and it is 18 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2014. 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 3 hours and 17 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 46 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠192.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠192.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠218.3°.

Moon after apogee

2 days since point of apogee on 24 August 2014 at 06:09 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 12 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 8 September 2014 at 03:29 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 403 571 km

The Moon is 403 571 km (250 767 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 12 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 388 km (222 692 mi).

Moon before ascending node

11 days after descending node on 15 August 2014 at 00:18 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 29 August 2014 at 13:14 in ♎ Libra.

Moon after northern standstill

6 days since the last northern standstill on 19 August 2014 at 22:12 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.750° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.641° at the point of next southern standstill on 3 September 2014 at 13:10 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

24 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♎ Libra the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 13 days

In 13 days on 9 September 2014 at 01:38 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