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 leaving the last ∠4° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♐ Sagittarius later.
Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 4 days on 16 September 2031 at 18:47.
Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2031 after 9 days on 30 September 2031 at 18:58.
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 0.7% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1924" and ∠1911".
The Moon is 5 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 392 of Meeus index or 1345 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 34 minutes and it is 45 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 50 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 13 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 ∠245.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠281.8°.
10 days since point of apogee on 11 September 2031 at 11:54 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 5 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 27 September 2031 at 07:09 in ♒ Aquarius.
The Moon is 372 553 km (231 494 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 5 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 366 841 km (227 944 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♏ Scorpio at 02:24 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 12 days until Moon's next descending node later on 3 October 2031 at 22:04 in ♉ Taurus.
12 days since the last northern standstill on 8 September 2031 at 23:27 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠20.623° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-20.501° at the point of next southern standstill on 23 September 2031 at 05:46 in ♐ Sagittarius.
At 02:24 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.
In 9 days on 30 September 2031 at 18:58 in ♈ Aries 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