New Moon on . The illuminated surface of the Moon is 0%. Lunar cycle is less than 1 day young.
* The exact date and time of this New Moon phase is on 15 September 2023 at 01:40 UTC.
The moon rises at sunrise and sets at sunset. It's part facing the Earth is completely in shadow.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is leaving the last ∠3° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♎ Libra later.
Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2023 after 13 days on 29 September 2023 at 09:57.
There is high New Moon ocean tide on this date. Combined Sun and Moon gravitational tidal force working on Earth is strong, because of the Sun-Moon-Earth syzygy alignment.
Lunar disc is not visible from Earth. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1781" and ∠1908".
At 01:40 on this date the Moon completes the old and enters a new synodic month with lunation 293 of Meeus index or lunation 1246 from Brown series.
The length of the lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 15 minutes. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2023. It is 43 minutes longer than the next 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 31 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 32 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit is ∠202.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠232.5°.
2 days since point of apogee on 12 September 2023 at 15:42 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 12 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 28 September 2023 at 01:05 in ♓ Pisces.
The Moon is 402 536 km (250 124 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 12 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 359 911 km (223 638 mi).
12 days after ascending node on 3 September 2023 at 07:44 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 17 September 2023 at 19:18 in ♎ Libra.
6 days since the last northern standstill on 8 September 2023 at 13:18 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.168° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠-28.254° at the point of next southern standstill on 23 September 2023 at 03:42 in ♑ Capricorn.
12 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♈ Aries the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.
The Moon is in a New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and thus forming Sun-Moon-Earth 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