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 5% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 2 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 ∠7° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 2 days on 31 May 2003 at 04:20.

Strawberry Moon after 11 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2003 after 11 days on 14 June 2003 at 11:16.

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 ∠1810"

Lunar disc appears visually 4.4% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1810" and ∠1892".

Lunation 42 / 995

The Moon is 2 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 42 of Meeus index or 995 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.6 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 19 minutes and it is 2 hours and 5 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 35 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 28 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠205.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠205.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠234.1°.

Moon after apogee

4 days since point of apogee on 28 May 2003 at 13:05 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 10 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 12 June 2003 at 23:18 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 395 925 km

The Moon is 395 925 km (246 016 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 10 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 360 427 km (223 959 mi).

Moon after ascending node

3 days after ascending node on 30 May 2003 at 08:33 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 12 June 2003 at 21:16 in ♏ Scorpio.

Moon at northern standstill

At 15:27 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠26.491°. Over the upcoming 13 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt southward to face maximum declination of ∠-26.477° at the point of next southern standstill in ♑ Capricorn on 15 June 2003 at 13:28.

Draconic month

3 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♉ Taurus the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 11 days

In 11 days on 14 June 2003 at 11:16 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