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 8% 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 is entering ♑ Capricorn

Moon is passing first ∠2° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 3 days on 18 November 2017 at 11:42.

Cold Moon after 12 days

Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2017 after 12 days on 3 December 2017 at 15:47.

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 9.4% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1943".

Lunation 221 / 1174

The Moon is 3 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 221 of Meeus index or 1174 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.78 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 18 hours and 48 minutes and it is 59 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 6 hours and 4 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 59 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠147°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠147° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠173.3°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 18:52 about 15 days since last perigee on 6 November 2017 at 00:09 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 12 days until point of next perigee on 4 December 2017 at 08:42 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 406 132 km

This apogee Moon is 406 132 km (252 359 mi) away from Earth. It is 724 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 577 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon before descending node

10 days after ascending node on 10 November 2017 at 22:40 in ♌ Leo the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 25 November 2017 at 08:22 in ♒ Aquarius.

Moon before southern standstill

13 days since the last northern standstill on 8 November 2017 at 01:28 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠19.848° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-19.959° at the point of next southern standstill on 22 November 2017 at 02:06 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

10 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♌ Leo the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 12 days

In 12 days on 3 December 2017 at 15:47 in ♊ Gemini 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