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 10% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 26 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 passing about ∠6° of ♌ Leo tropical zodiac sector.

4 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 4 days on 31 August 2002 at 02:31.

Harvest Moon after 17 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2002 after 17 days on 21 September 2002 at 13:59.

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 ∠1913"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.5% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1913" and ∠1903".

Lunation 32 / 985

The Moon is 26 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 32 of Meeus index or 985 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.33 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 55 minutes and it is 12 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2002. 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 49 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 20 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠324.8°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠324.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠343.1°.

Moon before perigee

8 days since point of apogee on 26 August 2002 at 17:43 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 3 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 8 September 2002 at 03:14 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 374 711 km

The Moon is 374 711 km (232 835 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 3 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 745 km (222 914 mi).

Moon after ascending node

3 days after ascending node on 31 August 2002 at 14:43 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 8 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 13 September 2002 at 03:39 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon after northern standstill

1 day since the last northern standstill on 2 September 2002 at 16:03 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠25.282° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠-25.377° at the point of next southern standstill on 15 September 2002 at 05:34 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

3 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 2 days

In 2 days on 7 September 2002 at 03:10 in ♍ Virgo 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