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 9% 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 passing about ∠5° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 3 days on 19 December 2044 at 08:53.

Wolf Moon after 11 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2045 after 11 days on 3 January 2045 at 10:20.

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 ∠1770"

Lunar disc appears visually 9.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1770" and ∠1951".

Lunation 556 / 1509

The Moon is 3 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 556 of Meeus index or 1509 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.81 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 19 hours and 32 minutes and it is 6 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2044. 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 6 hours and 48 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 15 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠156.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠156.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠182.1°.

Moon after apogee

1 day since point of apogee on 21 December 2044 at 20:29 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 12 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 3 January 2045 at 19:25 in ♋ Cancer.

Distance to Moon 405 053 km

The Moon is 405 053 km (251 688 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 12 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 356 773 km (221 688 mi).

Moon before ascending node

11 days after descending node on 10 December 2044 at 12:32 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 24 December 2044 at 21:19 in ♒ Aquarius.

Moon after southern standstill

3 days since the last southern standstill on 19 December 2044 at 04:38 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.031° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.069° at the point of next northern standstill on 2 January 2045 at 06:32 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

24 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♓ Pisces the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 11 days

In 11 days on 3 January 2045 at 10:20 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