young Moon, north of Sun

Event Date: December 14th

Time: 5:00 PM

Brief

   Can you see the Moon this evening shortly after Sunset?  If you take a look towards the southwest, the 4% waxing crescent may be barely visible.  This is a good time to try to find it, as the sky darkens quickly at this time of year with the Sun nearly at its furthest south on the celestial dome.  As for the Moon itself, being east of the Sun, it is a few degrees north of it as well.  As a result, it is placed decently "high" above the horizon, even at just under 2 days old.  That is, it reached new phase during the evening of the 12th.  Since the Moon is north of the Sun, that also means that it sets a little over an hour later (70 minutes), with this gap increasing further each day.  Here are the Moon and just-set Sun, along with the Moon's orbit and celestial guidelines.

click on images to enlarge: courtesy of Starry Night Pro Plus, version 6.4.3, by Simulation Curriculum Corp.

Detailed

Notice above how the Moon's orbit quickly puts it further north of the ecliptic; this will help improve its apparition as a waxing crescent over the next few days, as it "fattens" towards first quarter.  This is the time of year when we start having the waxing crescent high in the sky at Sunset compared to the late summer and early fall months, when it is south of the Sun and not getting very high at all.  By February and March, the young, waxing crescents have their best apparitions as seen from mid-northern latitudes.  In the southern hemispheres, they spend much less time above the horizon at Sunset, for anyone viewing from mid-latitudes there this evening.  The opposite is true for those latitudes between July-October, during their winter and spring seasons: the Moon then is far enough south of the Sun that they see it well placed as a waxing crescent.