Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 23% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 5 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 ∠18° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 5 days on 7 December 2018 at 07:20.
Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2018 after 10 days on 22 December 2018 at 17:49.
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 9.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1949".
The Moon is 5 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 234 of Meeus index or 1187 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 18 hours and 8 minutes and it is 1 hour and 27 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 24 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 39 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 ∠116.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠149.4°.
Moon is at apogee at 12:25 about 16 days since last perigee on 26 November 2018 at 12:10 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 11 days until point of next perigee on 24 December 2018 at 09:52 in ♋ Cancer.
This apogee Moon is 405 177 km (251 765 mi) away from Earth. It is 231 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 1 532 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.
1 day after descending node on 10 December 2018 at 17:57 in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 11 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 24 December 2018 at 11:54 in ♋ Cancer.
3 days since the last southern standstill on 9 December 2018 at 11:12 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-21.539° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠21.550° at the point of next northern standstill on 23 December 2018 at 11:48 in ♋ Cancer.
15 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♋ Cancer the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 10 days on 22 December 2018 at 17:49 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.
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