Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 3% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 2 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 about ∠12° of ♌ Leo tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 1 day on 13 July 2018 at 02:48.
Next Full Moon is the Buck Moon of July 2018 after 13 days on 27 July 2018 at 20:20.
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 4.3% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1970" and ∠1888".
The Moon is 2 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 229 of Meeus index or 1182 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 10 minutes and it is 54 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 5 hours and 34 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 35 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 ∠356° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠11.2°.
1 day since point of perigee on 13 July 2018 at 08:28 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 12 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 27 July 2018 at 05:44 in ♑ Capricorn.
The Moon is 363 847 km (226 084 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 12 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 223 km (252 415 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♌ Leo at 02:50 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 July 2018 at 22:40 in ♑ Capricorn.
1 day since the last northern standstill on 12 July 2018 at 12:01 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠20.761° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠-20.755° at the point of next southern standstill on 25 July 2018 at 20:55 in ♑ Capricorn.
At 02:50 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 13 days on 27 July 2018 at 20:20 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