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

Waxing Crescent in Cancer

Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 10% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 3 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 ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing about ∠8° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 3 days on 19 May 2004 at 04:52.

Strawberry Moon after 11 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2004 after 11 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 ∠1771"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1771" and ∠1895".

Lunation 54 / 1007

The Moon is 3 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 after apogee

1 day since point of apogee on 21 May 2004 at 12:02 in ♊ Gemini 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 3 June 2004 at 13:10 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Distance to Moon 404 716 km

The Moon is 404 716 km (251 479 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 12 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 357 249 km (221 984 mi).

Moon after ascending node

4 days after ascending node on 17 May 2004 at 18:17 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 9 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 at northern standstill

At 10:05 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠27.595°. Over the upcoming 13 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt southward to face maximum declination of ∠-27.569° at the point of next southern standstill in ♐ Sagittarius on 4 June 2004 at 17:29.

Draconic month

4 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 11 days

In 11 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