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

Waning Crescent in Aquarius

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 13% 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 ♒ Aquarius

Moon is passing about ∠14° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 3 days on 13 March 2004 at 21:01.

Pink Moon after 18 days

Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2004 after 18 days on 5 April 2004 at 11:03.

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 ∠1922"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.3% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1922" and ∠1928".

Lunation 51 / 1004

The Moon is 26 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 51 of Meeus index or 1004 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.56 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 24 minutes and it is 1 hour and 16 minutes shorter 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 40 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 23 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠59.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠59.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠93.6°.

Moon after perigee

5 days since point of perigee on 12 March 2004 at 03:37 in ♏ Scorpio the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 9 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 27 March 2004 at 07:02 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 372 945 km

The Moon is 372 945 km (231 737 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 9 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 520 km (251 357 mi).

Moon after descending node

6 days after descending node on 10 March 2004 at 23:05 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 24 March 2004 at 04:55 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon after southern standstill

2 days since the last southern standstill on 14 March 2004 at 19:20 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-27.445° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠27.541° at the point of next northern standstill on 28 March 2004 at 19:53 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

20 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♉ Taurus the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 20 March 2004 at 22:41 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