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

Waxing Crescent in Cancer

Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 1% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 1 day 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 ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing first ∠3° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 1 day on 13 June 2018 at 19:43.

Strawberry Moon after 13 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2018 after 13 days on 28 June 2018 at 04:53.

Moderate tide

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.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1966"

Lunar disc appears visually 4% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1966" and ∠1889".

Lunation 228 / 1181

The Moon is 1 day young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 228 of Meeus index or 1181 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.3 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 5 minutes and it is 5 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2018. 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°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 5 hours and 39 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 30 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠340.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠340.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠356°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 23:55 about 12 days since last apogee on 2 June 2018 at 16:34 in ♑ Capricorn 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 30 June 2018 at 02:43 in ♑ Capricorn.

Distance to Moon 359 507 km

This perigee Moon is 359 507 km (223 387 mi) away from Earth. It is 3 001 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 10 849 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 3 June 2018 at 12:39 in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 16 June 2018 at 17:50 in ♋ Cancer.

Moon before northern standstill

13 days since the last southern standstill on 1 June 2018 at 07:09 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-20.727° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠20.754° at the point of next northern standstill on 15 June 2018 at 00:52 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 13 days

In 13 days on 28 June 2018 at 04:53 in ♑ Capricorn 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