Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 1% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 1 day young.
The moon rises in the morning and sets in the evening. It is visible toward the southwest in early evening.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing about ∠11° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 1 day on 19 April 2004 at 13:21.
Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2004 after 14 days on 4 May 2004 at 20:33.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 6.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1789" and ∠1909".
The Moon is 1 day young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 53 of Meeus index or 1006 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 31 minutes and it is 4 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 47 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 16 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠129.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠158.3°.
12 days since point of perigee on 8 April 2004 at 02:28 in ♏ Scorpio 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 24 April 2004 at 00:26 in ♊ Gemini.
The Moon is 400 731 km (249 003 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 3 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 403 km (251 906 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♉ Taurus at 11:40 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 14 days until Moon's next descending node later on 4 May 2004 at 15:00 in ♏ Scorpio.
9 days since the last southern standstill on 11 April 2004 at 00:50 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-27.596° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠27.628° at the point of next northern standstill on 25 April 2004 at 03:32 in ♋ Cancer.
At 11:40 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.
In 14 days on 4 May 2004 at 20:33 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.
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
