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

Waxing Crescent in Aries

Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 31% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 5 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 ♈ Aries

Moon is passing first ∠4° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

4 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 4 days on 10 January 2005 at 12:03.

Wolf Moon after 9 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2005 after 9 days on 25 January 2005 at 10:32.

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 ∠1898"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1898" and ∠1951".

Lunation 62 / 1015

The Moon is 5 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 62 of Meeus index or 1015 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.43 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 25 minutes and it is 17 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2005. 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 19 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 50 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠1.4°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠1.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠17.1°.

Moon after perigee

5 days since point of perigee on 10 January 2005 at 10:07 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 8 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 23 January 2005 at 18:54 in ♋ Cancer.

Distance to Moon 377 656 km

The Moon is 377 656 km (234 665 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 8 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 444 km (252 553 mi).

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 4 January 2005 at 21:52 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 17 January 2005 at 07:32 in ♈ Aries.

Moon after southern standstill

6 days since the last southern standstill on 9 January 2005 at 11:17 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-27.938° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠27.973° at the point of next northern standstill on 22 January 2005 at 19:22 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 9 days

In 9 days on 25 January 2005 at 10:32 in ♌ Leo 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