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

Waxing Crescent in Cancer

Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 3% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 2 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 ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing about ∠7° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after New Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 1 day on 5 June 2073 at 19:51.

Strawberry Moon after 12 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2073 after 12 days on 19 June 2073 at 18:44.

Moderate tide

There is medium ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at very acute angle, so their combined tidal force is moderate.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1862"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1862" and ∠1890".

Lunation 908 / 1861

The Moon is 2 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 908 of Meeus index or 1861 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.48 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 25 minutes and it is 1 hour and 37 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 1 hour and 19 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 50 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠250°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠250° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠284.5°.

Moon after apogee

7 days since point of apogee on 31 May 2073 at 06:54 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 8 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 15 June 2073 at 21:26 in ♎ Libra.

Distance to Moon 384 927 km

The Moon is 384 927 km (239 183 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 8 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 367 448 km (228 322 mi).

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 27 May 2073 at 15:39 in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 10 June 2073 at 22:06 in ♌ Leo.

Moon at northern standstill

At 13:47 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠19.587°. Over the upcoming 12 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt southward to face maximum declination of ∠-19.607° at the point of next southern standstill in ♑ Capricorn on 20 June 2073 at 11:20.

Draconic month

23 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♌ Leo the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 12 days

In 12 days on 19 June 2073 at 18:44 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