Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 4% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 2 days young.
The moon rises in the morning and sets in the evening. It is visible toward the southwest in early evening.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing about ∠19° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 1 day on 16 December 2009 at 12:02.
Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2009 after 13 days on 31 December 2009 at 19:13.
There is medium ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at very acute angle, so their combined tidal force is moderate.
Lunar disc appears visually 9.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1774" and ∠1950".
The Moon is 2 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 123 of Meeus index or 1076 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 19 hours and 9 minutes and it is 31 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2009. 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 6 hours and 25 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 38 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠135.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠164.3°.
13 days since point of perigee on 4 December 2009 at 14:12 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 2 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 20 December 2009 at 14:54 in ♒ Aquarius.
The Moon is 404 074 km (251 080 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 2 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 731 km (252 110 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♑ Capricorn at 16:41 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 14 days until Moon's next descending node later on 1 January 2010 at 12:30 in ♋ Cancer.
2 days since the last southern standstill on 16 December 2009 at 02:38 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.769° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠25.787° at the point of next northern standstill on 30 December 2009 at 10:09 in ♊ Gemini.
At 16:41 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.
In 13 days on 31 December 2009 at 19:13 in ♋ Cancer 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.
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