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

Waxing Crescent in Capricorn

Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 4% 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 ♑ Capricorn

Moon is leaving the last ∠3° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♒ Aquarius later.

1 day after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 1 day on 24 December 2011 at 18:06.

Wolf Moon after 13 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2012 after 13 days on 9 January 2012 at 07:30.

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 ∠1878"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1878" and ∠1951".

Lunation 148 / 1101

The Moon is 2 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 148 of Meeus index or 1101 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.56 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 33 minutes and it is 1 hour and 22 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°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 49 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 14 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠42.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠42.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠70.8°.

Moon after perigee

4 days since point of perigee on 22 December 2011 at 02:56 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 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 2 January 2012 at 20:19 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 381 698 km

The Moon is 381 698 km (237 176 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 7 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 580 km (251 394 mi).

Moon after ascending node

3 days after ascending node on 23 December 2011 at 11:36 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 11 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 6 January 2012 at 14:30 in ♊ Gemini.

Moon after southern standstill

2 days since the last southern standstill on 23 December 2011 at 17:25 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-22.554° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠22.539° at the point of next northern standstill on 6 January 2012 at 21:46 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 13 days

In 13 days on 9 January 2012 at 07:30 in ♋ Cancer 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