Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 10% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 3 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 first ∠3° of ♌ Leo tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 2 days on 13 June 2018 at 19:43.
Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2018 after 11 days on 28 June 2018 at 04:53.
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 4.3% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1972" and ∠1889".
The Moon is 3 days 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.
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°).
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.
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°.
1 day since point of perigee on 14 June 2018 at 23:55 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 13 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 30 June 2018 at 02:43 in ♑ Capricorn.
The Moon is 363 473 km (225 852 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 13 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 061 km (252 315 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♋ Cancer at 17:50 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 14 days until Moon's next descending node later on 30 June 2018 at 16:44 in ♒ Aquarius.
1 day since the last northern standstill on 15 June 2018 at 00:52 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠20.754° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠-20.775° at the point of next southern standstill on 28 June 2018 at 14:30 in ♑ Capricorn.
At 17:50 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 11 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.
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