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

Waxing Crescent in Virgo

Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 12% 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 in ♍ Virgo

Moon is passing about ∠10° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 3 days on 18 July 2050 at 21:17.

Sturgeon Moon after 11 days

Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2050 after 11 days on 3 August 2050 at 02:20.

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 ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1889".

Lunation 625 / 1578

The Moon is 3 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 625 of Meeus index or 1578 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.6 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 31 minutes and it is 1 hour and 31 minutes shorter 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°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 47 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 16 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠137°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠137° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠163.4°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 20:27 about 15 days since last perigee on 7 July 2050 at 02:25 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 12 days until point of next perigee on 4 August 2050 at 05:06 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 405 717 km

This apogee Moon is 405 717 km (252 101 mi) away from Earth. It is 309 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 992 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

8 days after descending node on 13 July 2050 at 14:19 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 5 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 28 July 2050 at 02:39 in ♏ Scorpio.

Moon after northern standstill

6 days since the last northern standstill on 15 July 2050 at 23:05 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠20.446° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠-20.346° at the point of next southern standstill on 30 July 2050 at 14:00 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 11 days

In 11 days on 3 August 2050 at 02:20 in ♒ Aquarius 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