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

Waxing Crescent in Gemini

Waxing Crescent on . 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 in ♊ Gemini

Moon is leaving the last ∠3° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♋ Cancer later.

5 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 5 days on 26 March 2009 at 16:06.

Pink Moon after 8 days

Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2009 after 8 days on 9 April 2009 at 14:56.

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 ∠1970"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.6% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1970" and ∠1920".

Lunation 114 / 1067

The Moon is 6 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 114 of Meeus index or 1067 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.47 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 17 minutes and it is 2 hours and 29 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 27 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 42 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠282.4°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠282.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠311.7°.

Moon before perigee

12 days since point of apogee on 19 March 2009 at 13:16 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 2 April 2009 at 02:31 in ♋ Cancer.

Distance to Moon 363 781 km

The Moon is 363 781 km (226 043 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next day until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 370 014 km (229 916 mi).

Moon before descending node

10 days after ascending node on 22 March 2009 at 02:12 in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 4 April 2009 at 07:22 in ♌ Leo.

Moon at northern standstill

At 02:50 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠26.780°. Over the upcoming 13 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt southward to face maximum declination of ∠-26.665° at the point of next southern standstill in ♐ Sagittarius on 14 April 2009 at 13:02.

Draconic month

10 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 8 days

In 8 days on 9 April 2009 at 14:56 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