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

Waxing Crescent in Sagittarius

Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 9% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 3 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 ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing first ∠0° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 2 days on 14 November 2031 at 21:10.

Beaver Moon after 11 days

Next Full Moon is the Beaver Moon of November 2031 after 11 days on 28 November 2031 at 23:18.

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 ∠1959"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.9% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1959" and ∠1941".

Lunation 394 / 1347

The Moon is 3 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 394 of Meeus index or 1347 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.5 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 56 minutes and it is 55 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 48 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 21 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠312.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠312.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠334.7°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 22:07 about 11 days since last apogee on 6 November 2031 at 02:45 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 16 days until point of next apogee on 3 December 2031 at 22:35 in ♌ Leo.

Distance to Moon 365 930 km

This perigee Moon is 365 930 km (227 378 mi) away from Earth. It is 3 422 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 4 426 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon after ascending node

2 days after ascending node on 14 November 2031 at 15:32 in ♏ Scorpio 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 27 November 2031 at 14:01 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon after southern standstill

1 day since the last southern standstill on 16 November 2031 at 18:24 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-20.336° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠20.350° at the point of next northern standstill on 30 November 2031 at 00:08 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 11 days

In 11 days on 28 November 2031 at 23:18 in ♊ Gemini 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