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 44% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 7 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 ∠7° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

6 days after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 6 days on 29 May 2071 at 11:17.

Strawberry Moon after 8 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2071 after 8 days on 12 June 2071 at 17:36.

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 ∠1941"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.6% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1941" and ∠1891".

Lunation 883 / 1836

The Moon is 7 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 883 of Meeus index or 1836 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.29 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 4 minutes and it is 28 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 5 hours and 40 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 29 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠334°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠334° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠350.4°.

Moon after perigee

4 days since point of perigee on 31 May 2071 at 00:58 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 10 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 15 June 2071 at 11:49 in ♑ Capricorn.

Distance to Moon 369 301 km

The Moon is 369 301 km (229 473 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 10 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 978 km (252 263 mi).

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 24 May 2071 at 23:39 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 6 June 2071 at 13:14 in ♍ Virgo.

Moon after northern standstill

4 days since the last northern standstill on 30 May 2071 at 20:30 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.383° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.428° at the point of next southern standstill on 13 June 2071 at 08:15 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

25 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♎ Libra the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 8 days

In 8 days on 12 June 2071 at 17:36 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.

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