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 17% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 4 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.

3 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 3 days on 30 January 2014 at 21:39.

Snow Moon after 11 days

Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2014 after 11 days on 14 February 2014 at 23:53.

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 ∠1912"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1912" and ∠1947".

Lunation 174 / 1127

The Moon is 4 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 174 of Meeus index or 1127 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.43 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 21 minutes and it is 24 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2014. 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 23 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 46 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠8.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠8.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠25.1°.

Moon after perigee

4 days since point of perigee on 30 January 2014 at 09:58 in ♒ Aquarius 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 12 February 2014 at 05:09 in ♋ Cancer.

Distance to Moon 374 939 km

The Moon is 374 939 km (232 976 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 8 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 232 km (252 421 mi).

Moon before descending node

10 days after ascending node on 24 January 2014 at 02:55 in ♏ Scorpio 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 5 February 2014 at 12:41 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon before northern standstill

6 days since the last southern standstill on 27 January 2014 at 16:31 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-19.396° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠19.306° at the point of next northern standstill on 9 February 2014 at 15:21 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 11 days

In 11 days on 14 February 2014 at 23:53 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