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

Waning Crescent in Leo

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 7% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 27 days old.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises after midnight to early morning and sets in the afternoon. It is visible in the early morning low to the east.

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 ♌ Leo

Moon is leaving the last ∠2° of ♌ Leo tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♍ Virgo later.

5 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 5 days on 16 September 2014 at 02:05.

Hunter Moon after 16 days

Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2014 after 16 days on 8 October 2014 at 10:51.

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 ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 7.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1911".

Lunation 181 / 1134

The Moon is 27 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 181 of Meeus index or 1134 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.67 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 1 minute and it is 18 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2014. 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 17 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 46 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠192.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠192.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠218.3°.

Moon after apogee

1 day since point of apogee on 20 September 2014 at 14:22 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 14 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 6 October 2014 at 09:41 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 405 360 km

The Moon is 405 360 km (251 879 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 14 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 362 481 km (225 235 mi).

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 11 September 2014 at 07:32 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 25 September 2014 at 17:41 in ♎ Libra.

Moon after northern standstill

5 days since the last northern standstill on 16 September 2014 at 05:15 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.579° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 9 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.528° at the point of next southern standstill on 30 September 2014 at 19:29 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

22 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 2 days

In 2 days on 24 September 2014 at 06:14 in ♎ Libra 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