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

Waning Crescent in Taurus

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 5% 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 ♉ Taurus

Moon is leaving the last ∠1° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♊ Gemini later.

5 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 5 days on 9 June 2004 at 20:02.

Buck Moon after 16 days

Next Full Moon is the Buck Moon of July 2004 after 16 days on 2 July 2004 at 11:09.

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 ∠1777"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1777" and ∠1889".

Lunation 54 / 1007

The Moon is 27 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 54 of Meeus index or 1007 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.65 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 35 minutes and it is 38 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2004. 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 2 hours and 51 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 12 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠158.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠158.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠181.6°.

Moon before apogee

11 days since point of perigee on 3 June 2004 at 13:10 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 2 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 17 June 2004 at 16:02 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 403 322 km

The Moon is 403 322 km (250 613 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 2 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 575 km (252 634 mi).

Moon after ascending node

1 day after ascending node on 13 June 2004 at 22:49 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 12 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 28 June 2004 at 08:37 in ♏ Scorpio.

Moon before northern standstill

10 days since the last southern standstill on 4 June 2004 at 17:29 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-27.569° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠27.532° at the point of next northern standstill on 18 June 2004 at 15:35 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

1 day since the beginning of this draconic month in ♉ Taurus the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 2 days

In 2 days on 17 June 2004 at 20:27 in ♊ Gemini 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