How can you identify if its a waning or waxing moon?

Answer 1

The Moon's phases grow from right to left in the NorthernHemisphere, backwards to how we - in the West - read. So the Waxing Moon begins on the right side of the moon. And the Waning Moon ends on the left side. But how can you remember this easily?

Here's a simple way to determine whether the moon is waxing or waning.

Steps

1. Flatten your right hand, with your fingers together and your thumb sticking out.

   Waxing Crescent

2. Hold your hand out at arm's length in front of you. Tilt your thumb towards the ground.
3. See how the line along your thumb and first finger makes a curve, roughly like a backwards letter "'C'"? It actually looks sort of like this: ) This is the shape of the Waxing Moon. If the Moon's curve fits along this right-hand curve, it is a Waxing Moon.
4. Commit it to memory. One way to remember this is to think of drawing in wax. Most people are right-handed, and if they were to draw in wax, they'd use their right hand. So if the Moon fits in your right-hand curve, it is waxing.
5. Do the same with the left hand. This makes a shape like this: (

   This is the shape of the Waning Moon. If the moon fits in this curve, you know it is getting smaller every day, going toward the new moon / dark moon.

Watch it for about a week. If it gets smaller, it is waning; if it gets larger, it is waxing.

Be aware that (in the north) the shadow moves across the moon from our right to our left. You can tell from this how the phase is advancing.