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 23% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 5 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 ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing about ∠15° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

4 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 4 days on 4 May 2019 at 22:45.

Flower Moon after 9 days

Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2019 after 9 days on 18 May 2019 at 21:11.

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 ∠1942"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1942" and ∠1900".

Lunation 239 / 1192

The Moon is 5 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 239 of Meeus index or 1192 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.47 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 16 minutes and it is 2 hours and 2 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. 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 1 hour and 28 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 41 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠263°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠263° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠296.1°.

Moon before perigee

10 days since point of apogee on 28 April 2019 at 18:20 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 13 May 2019 at 21:53 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 369 149 km

The Moon is 369 149 km (229 379 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 4 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 369 017 km (229 297 mi).

Moon in ascending node

Moon is in ascending node in ♋ Cancer at 18:50 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 22 May 2019 at 19:12 in ♑ Capricorn.

Moon at northern standstill

At 05:46 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠22.243°. Over the upcoming 12 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt southward to face maximum declination of ∠-22.313° at the point of next southern standstill in ♑ Capricorn on 22 May 2019 at 06:41.

New draconic month

At 18:50 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.

Syzygy in 9 days

In 9 days on 18 May 2019 at 21:11 in ♏ Scorpio 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