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 7% 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 passing about ∠15° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 2 days on 4 December 2040 at 07:33.

Cold Moon after 12 days

Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2040 after 12 days on 18 December 2040 at 12:16.

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 ∠1964"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.8% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1964" and ∠1948".

Lunation 506 / 1459

The Moon is 2 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 506 of Meeus index or 1459 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.48 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 35 minutes and it is 1 hour 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 1 hour and 9 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠323.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠323.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠342.7°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 13:20 about 11 days since last apogee on 24 November 2040 at 19:12 in ♌ Leo 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 22 December 2040 at 13:29 in ♌ Leo.

Distance to Moon 363 352 km

This perigee Moon is 363 352 km (225 776 mi) away from Earth. It is 844 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 7 004 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon after descending node

3 days after descending node on 3 December 2040 at 01:02 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 9 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 15 December 2040 at 21:13 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon at southern standstill

At 01:37 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-26.791°. Over the upcoming 12 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠26.761° at the point of next northern standstill in ♋ Cancer on 19 December 2040 at 10:11.

Draconic month

17 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♉ Taurus the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 12 days

In 12 days on 18 December 2040 at 12:16 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