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

Waxing Crescent in Gemini

Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 5% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 2 days 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 ♊ Gemini

Moon is leaving the last ∠4° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♋ Cancer later.

2 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 2 days on 19 May 2004 at 04:52.

Strawberry Moon after 12 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2004 after 12 days on 3 June 2004 at 04:20.

Neap tide

There is low ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at big angle, so their combined tidal force is weak.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1895".

Lunation 54 / 1007

The Moon is 2 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 54 of Meeus index or 1007 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.65 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 35 minutes and it is 38 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2004. 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 2 hours and 51 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 12 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠158.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠158.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠181.6°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 12:02 about 15 days since last perigee on 6 May 2004 at 04:29 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 13 days until point of next perigee on 3 June 2004 at 13:10 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Distance to Moon 406 262 km

This apogee Moon is 406 262 km (252 440 mi) away from Earth. It is 854 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 447 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon after ascending node

3 days after ascending node on 17 May 2004 at 18:17 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 1 June 2004 at 01:20 in ♏ Scorpio.

Moon before northern standstill

13 days since the last southern standstill on 8 May 2004 at 08:08 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-27.623° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠27.595° at the point of next northern standstill on 22 May 2004 at 10:05 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

3 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♉ Taurus the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 12 days

In 12 days on 3 June 2004 at 04:20 in ♐ Sagittarius 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