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

Waxing Crescent in Aquarius

Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 13% 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 ♒ Aquarius

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

3 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 3 days on 1 January 2014 at 11:14.

Wolf Moon after 11 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2014 after 11 days on 16 January 2014 at 04:52.

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 ∠1957"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.3% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1957" and ∠1951".

Lunation 173 / 1126

The Moon is 3 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 173 of Meeus index or 1126 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.43 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 24 minutes and it is 3 minutes longer 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 20 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 49 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠353°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠353° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠8.3°.

Moon after perigee

2 days since point of perigee on 1 January 2014 at 21:00 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 11 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 16 January 2014 at 01:53 in ♋ Cancer.

Distance to Moon 366 290 km

The Moon is 366 290 km (227 602 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 11 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 537 km (252 610 mi).

Moon before descending node

7 days after ascending node on 28 December 2013 at 00:21 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 9 January 2014 at 11:26 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon after southern standstill

4 days since the last southern standstill on 31 December 2013 at 04:49 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-19.537° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠19.501° at the point of next northern standstill on 13 January 2014 at 08:14 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

7 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 11 days

In 11 days on 16 January 2014 at 04:52 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