Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 6% 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 ∠22° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 1 day on 15 October 2012 at 12:02.
Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2012 after 12 days on 29 October 2012 at 19:50.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 2.3% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1971" and ∠1926".
The Moon is 2 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 158 of Meeus index or 1111 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 5 minutes and it is 29 minutes shorter 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 39 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 30 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠334.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠351.3°.
Moon is at perigee at 01:02 about 12 days since last apogee on 5 October 2012 at 00:43 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 15 days until point of next apogee on 1 November 2012 at 15:30 in ♊ Gemini.
This perigee Moon is 360 673 km (224 112 mi) away from Earth. It is 1 835 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 9 683 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.
Moon is in ascending node in ♏ Scorpio at 18:27 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next descending node later on 31 October 2012 at 10:36 in ♉ Taurus.
11 days since the last northern standstill on 6 October 2012 at 01:40 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠21.024° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-20.964° at the point of next southern standstill on 19 October 2012 at 06:49 in ♐ Sagittarius.
At 18:27 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 12 days on 29 October 2012 at 19:50 in ♉ Taurus 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