Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 19% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 4 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 ∠21° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 3 days on 16 May 2026 at 20:01.
Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2026 after 10 days on 31 May 2026 at 08:45.
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 3.1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1956" and ∠1896".
The Moon is 4 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 326 of Meeus index or 1279 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 6 hours and 53 minutes and it is 4 minutes longer 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 51 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 18 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 ∠347.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠2.5°.
2 days since point of perigee on 17 May 2026 at 13:48 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 11 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 1 June 2026 at 04:32 in ♐ Sagittarius.
The Moon is 366 397 km (227 669 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 11 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 369 km (252 506 mi).
9 days after ascending node on 11 May 2026 at 04:36 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 23 May 2026 at 15:26 in ♌ Leo.
1 day since the last northern standstill on 18 May 2026 at 19:38 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.051° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠-27.988° at the point of next southern standstill on 1 June 2026 at 16:59 in ♐ Sagittarius.
9 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♓ Pisces the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.
In 10 days on 31 May 2026 at 08:45 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.
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