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 8% 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 ♉ Taurus

Moon is passing about ∠12° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 2 days on 27 March 2074 at 14:19.

Pink Moon after 12 days

Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2074 after 12 days on 11 April 2074 at 18:30.

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 ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 8.3% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1921".

Lunation 918 / 1871

The Moon is 3 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 918 of Meeus index or 1871 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.69 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 28 minutes and it is 31 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2074. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increase with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at apogee (∠180°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 44 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 19 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠144°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠144° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠170.1°.

Moon before apogee

15 days since point of perigee on 15 March 2074 at 07:27 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 31 March 2074 at 02:22 in ♉ Taurus.

Distance to Moon 405 472 km

The Moon is 405 472 km (251 949 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next day until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 972 km (252 259 mi).

Moon before ascending node

7 days after descending node on 23 March 2074 at 02:17 in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 7 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 6 April 2074 at 16:25 in ♌ Leo.

Moon before northern standstill

9 days since the last southern standstill on 20 March 2074 at 18:34 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-20.405° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠20.533° at the point of next northern standstill on 4 April 2074 at 08:53 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

20 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♌ Leo the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 12 days

In 12 days on 11 April 2074 at 18:30 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