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

Last Quarter in Capricorn

Last Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 46% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 22 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Last Quarter phase is on 12 April 2015 at 03:44 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 in ♑ Capricorn

Moon is leaving the last ∠3° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♒ Aquarius later.

Flower Moon after 21 days

Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2015 after 21 days on 4 May 2015 at 03:42.

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 ∠1938"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.3% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1938" and ∠1914".

Lunation 188 / 1141

The Moon is 22 days old and navigating through the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 188 of Meeus index or 1141 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.39 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 21 minutes and it is 5 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. 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 3 hours and 23 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 46 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠9.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠9.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠27.1°.

Moon before perigee

10 days since point of apogee on 1 April 2015 at 12:59 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 17 April 2015 at 03:53 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 369 775 km

The Moon is 369 775 km (229 768 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 4 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 361 026 km (224 331 mi).

Moon before descending node

8 days after ascending node on 4 April 2015 at 03:17 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 5 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 17 April 2015 at 13:07 in ♈ Aries.

Moon after southern standstill

2 days since the last southern standstill on 10 April 2015 at 07:46 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-18.250° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠18.280° at the point of next northern standstill on 22 April 2015 at 23:26 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

8 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 18 April 2015 at 18:57 in ♈ Aries 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