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

Last Quarter in Sagittarius

Last Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 52% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 22 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Last Quarter phase is on 22 February 2014 at 17:15 UTC.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises at midnight and sets at noon. It is visible to the south in the morning.

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 is entering ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing first ∠1° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

Worm Moon after 22 days

Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2014 after 22 days on 16 March 2014 at 17:09.

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 ∠1925"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1925" and ∠1939".

Lunation 174 / 1127

The Moon is 22 days old and navigating through the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 174 of Meeus index or 1127 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.43 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 21 minutes and it is 24 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2014. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increase with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at apogee (∠180°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 23 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 46 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠8.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠8.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠25.1°.

Moon before perigee

10 days since point of apogee on 12 February 2014 at 05:09 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 5 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 27 February 2014 at 19:52 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 372 353 km

The Moon is 372 353 km (231 369 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 5 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 360 439 km (223 966 mi).

Moon after ascending node

2 days after ascending node on 20 February 2014 at 03:28 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 4 March 2014 at 17:45 in ♈ Aries.

Moon before southern standstill

12 days since the last northern standstill on 9 February 2014 at 15:21 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠19.306° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-19.175° at the point of next southern standstill on 24 February 2014 at 01:24 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 1 March 2014 at 08:00 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is going to be in a New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Moon-Earth 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