Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 44% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 7 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 ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♌ Leo later.
Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 7 days on 14 April 2056 at 23:50.
Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2056 after 7 days on 29 April 2056 at 18:31.
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 2.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1855" and ∠1908".
The Moon is 7 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 696 of Meeus index or 1649 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 16 minutes and it is 1 hour and 18 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 3 hours and 32 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 31 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 ∠172.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠196°.
6 days since point of apogee on 15 April 2056 at 19:35 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 29 April 2056 at 14:48 in ♏ Scorpio.
The Moon is 386 373 km (240 081 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 7 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 356 811 km (221 712 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♋ Cancer at 10:02 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 4 May 2056 at 20:18 in ♑ Capricorn.
1 day since the last northern standstill on 21 April 2056 at 07:19 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠21.717° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠-21.812° at the point of next southern standstill on 3 May 2056 at 22:04 in ♑ Capricorn.
At 10:02 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 7 days on 29 April 2056 at 18:31 in ♏ Scorpio 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