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

Waxing Crescent in Capricorn

Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 21% 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 in ♑ Capricorn

Moon is leaving the last ∠4° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♒ Aquarius later.

5 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 5 days on 18 November 2017 at 11:42.

Cold Moon after 10 days

Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2017 after 10 days on 3 December 2017 at 15:47.

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 ∠1776"

Lunar disc appears visually 9% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1776" and ∠1943".

Lunation 221 / 1174

The Moon is 4 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 221 of Meeus index or 1174 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.78 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 18 hours and 48 minutes and it is 59 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 6 hours and 4 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 59 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠147°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠147° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠173.3°.

Moon after apogee

1 day since point of apogee on 21 November 2017 at 18:52 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 10 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 4 December 2017 at 08:42 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 403 479 km

The Moon is 403 479 km (250 710 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 10 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 357 496 km (222 138 mi).

Moon before descending node

12 days after ascending node on 10 November 2017 at 22:40 in ♌ Leo the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 25 November 2017 at 08:22 in ♒ Aquarius.

Moon after southern standstill

1 day since the last southern standstill on 22 November 2017 at 02:06 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-19.959° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠20.015° at the point of next northern standstill on 5 December 2017 at 11:43 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

12 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♌ Leo the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 10 days

In 10 days on 3 December 2017 at 15:47 in ♊ Gemini 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