Waxing Crescent Moon
Waxing Crescent MoonImage credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.(large image)

Waxing Crescent in Cancer

Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 18% 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 ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing about ∠20° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 3 days on 16 May 2045 at 18:26.

Flower Moon after 10 days

Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2045 after 10 days on 30 May 2045 at 17:52.

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 ∠1966"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.6% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1966" and ∠1896".

Lunation 561 / 1514

The Moon is 4 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 561 of Meeus index or 1514 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.36 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 38 minutes and it is 1 hour and 14 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 4 hours and 6 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 3 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠305.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠305.3° 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 10:22 about 12 days since last apogee on 8 May 2045 at 09:24 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 15 days until point of next apogee on 5 June 2045 at 03:25 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 367 210 km

This perigee Moon is 367 210 km (228 174 mi) away from Earth. It is 4 702 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 3 146 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before descending node

10 days after ascending node on 9 May 2045 at 21:30 in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 23 May 2045 at 02:17 in ♌ Leo.

Moon after northern standstill

1 day since the last northern standstill on 18 May 2045 at 18:47 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠27.745° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠-27.697° at the point of next southern standstill on 31 May 2045 at 22:23 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 10 days

In 10 days on 30 May 2045 at 17:52 in ♐ Sagittarius 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