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

Waxing Crescent in Leo

Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 22% 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 is entering ♌ Leo

Moon is passing first ∠3° of ♌ Leo tropical zodiac sector.

4 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 4 days on 22 May 2020 at 17:39.

Strawberry Moon after 9 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2020 after 9 days on 5 June 2020 at 19:12.

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 ∠1904"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.6% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1904" and ∠1893".

Lunation 252 / 1205

The Moon is 5 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 252 of Meeus index or 1205 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.54 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 3 minutes and it is 2 hours and 11 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 19 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 44 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠229.8°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠229.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠263.8°.

Moon before perigee

9 days since point of apogee on 18 May 2020 at 07:45 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 6 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 3 June 2020 at 03:36 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 376 500 km

The Moon is 376 500 km (233 946 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 6 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 364 366 km (226 407 mi).

Moon after ascending node

2 days after ascending node on 24 May 2020 at 21:34 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 6 June 2020 at 18:10 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon after northern standstill

1 day since the last northern standstill on 25 May 2020 at 21:16 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠24.055° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠-24.069° at the point of next southern standstill on 7 June 2020 at 16:22 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

2 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 9 days

In 9 days on 5 June 2020 at 19:12 in ♐ Sagittarius 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