Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 1% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 1 day 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 ∠5° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 1 day on 13 September 2015 at 06:41.
Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2015 after 13 days on 28 September 2015 at 02:50.
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 7.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1908".
The Moon is 1 day young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 194 of Meeus index or 1147 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 17 hours and 24 minutes and it is 17 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 4 hours and 40 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 23 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 ∠169.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠192.9°.
Moon is at apogee at 11:28 about 14 days since last perigee on 30 August 2015 at 15:24 in ♓ Pisces the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 13 days until point of next perigee on 28 September 2015 at 01:46 in ♈ Aries.
This apogee Moon is 406 466 km (252 566 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's farthest apogee of 2015. It is 1 058 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 243 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.
Moon is in ascending node in ♎ Libra at 04:38 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 27 September 2015 at 21:04 in ♓ Pisces.
7 days since the last northern standstill on 6 September 2015 at 17:06 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.163° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.134° at the point of next southern standstill on 21 September 2015 at 12:02 in ♐ Sagittarius.
At 04:38 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 28 September 2015 at 02:50 in ♈ Aries 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