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

Waxing Crescent in Taurus

Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 11% 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 is entering ♉ Taurus

Moon is passing first ∠3° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 2 days on 12 March 2070 at 15:52.

Worm Moon after 11 days

Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2070 after 11 days on 26 March 2070 at 17:31.

Moderate tide

There is medium ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at very acute angle, so their combined tidal force is moderate.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1961"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.7% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1961" and ∠1929".

Lunation 868 / 1821

The Moon is 3 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 868 of Meeus index or 1821 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.44 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 38 minutes and it is 2 hours 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 2 hours and 6 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 3 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠312°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠312° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠333.5°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 17:55 about 11 days since last apogee on 3 March 2070 at 22:21 in ♏ Scorpio 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 31 March 2070 at 17:01 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Distance to Moon 366 070 km

This perigee Moon is 366 070 km (227 465 mi) away from Earth. It is 3 562 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 4 286 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon after descending node

1 day after descending node on 14 March 2070 at 23:47 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 12 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 28 March 2070 at 06:44 in ♎ Libra.

Moon before northern standstill

9 days since the last southern standstill on 5 March 2070 at 19:21 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-18.883° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠18.809° at the point of next northern standstill on 19 March 2070 at 00:13 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

14 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 11 days

In 11 days on 26 March 2070 at 17:31 in ♎ Libra 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