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 16% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 4 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 passing about ∠11° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 3 days on 12 December 2023 at 23:32.

Cold Moon after 10 days

Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2023 after 10 days on 27 December 2023 at 00:33.

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 ∠1961"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.6% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1961" and ∠1950".

Lunation 296 / 1249

The Moon is 4 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 296 of Meeus index or 1249 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.52 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 25 minutes and it is 1 hour and 23 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 19 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 50 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠303.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠303.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠328°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 18:53 about 12 days since last apogee on 4 December 2023 at 18:42 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 16 days until point of next apogee on 1 January 2024 at 15:28 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 367 900 km

This perigee Moon is 367 900 km (228 602 mi) away from Earth. It is 5 392 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 2 456 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

7 days after descending node on 8 December 2023 at 15:24 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 5 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 21 December 2023 at 13:54 in ♈ Aries.

Moon after southern standstill

2 days since the last southern standstill on 13 December 2023 at 21:51 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.151° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.131° at the point of next northern standstill on 26 December 2023 at 21:50 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

22 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♈ Aries the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 10 days

In 10 days on 27 December 2023 at 00:33 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