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 6% 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 is entering ♒ Aquarius

Moon is passing first ∠2° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 2 days on 23 December 2041 at 08:06.

Wolf Moon after 11 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2042 after 11 days on 6 January 2042 at 08:54.

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 ∠1937"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1937" and ∠1951".

Lunation 519 / 1472

The Moon is 2 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 519 of Meeus index or 1472 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.53 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 36 minutes and it is 1 hour and 39 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 8 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 1 minute longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠300.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠300.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠326°.

Moon before perigee

10 days since point of apogee on 15 December 2041 at 07:09 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 27 December 2041 at 09:54 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 370 079 km

The Moon is 370 079 km (229 956 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next day until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 368 408 km (228 918 mi).

Moon before ascending node

6 days after descending node on 18 December 2041 at 23:35 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 31 December 2041 at 22:59 in ♈ Aries.

Moon after southern standstill

1 day since the last southern standstill on 23 December 2041 at 14:23 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-27.725° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠27.722° at the point of next northern standstill on 5 January 2042 at 12:44 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

20 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 11 days

In 11 days on 6 January 2042 at 08:54 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