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

Waxing Crescent in Capricorn

Waxing Crescent today: . The illuminated surface of the moon is 37% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 6 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 ♑ Capricorn

Moon is passing first ∠1° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.

6 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 6 days on 2 October 2024 at 18:49.

Hunter Moon after 7 days

Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2024 after 7 days on 17 October 2024 at 11:26.

Neap tide

There is low ocean tide today. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at big angle, so their combined tidal force is weak.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1853"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1853" and ∠1922".

Lunation 306 / 1259

The Moon is 6 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 306 of Meeus index or 1259 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.75 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 17 hours and 58 minutes and it is 24 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2024. 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 5 hours and 14 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 49 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠179.7°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠179.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠204.3°.

Moon after apogee

6 days since point of apogee on 2 October 2024 at 19:40 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 17 October 2024 at 00:46 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 386 912 km

The Moon is 386 912 km (240 416 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 7 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 357 173 km (221 937 mi).

Moon before ascending node

7 days after descending node on 2 October 2024 at 11:52 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 16 October 2024 at 07:05 in ♈ Aries.

Moon at southern standstill

At 11:53 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-28.684°. This is the year's southernmost lunar standstill of 2024. Over the upcoming 12 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠28.653° at the point of next northern standstill in ♋ Cancer on 22 October 2024 at 00:50.

Draconic month

20 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 7 days

In 7 days on 17 October 2024 at 11:26 in ♈ Aries 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