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

Waning Crescent in Cancer

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 1% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 28 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 is entering ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing first ∠2° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

6 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 6 days on 28 June 2005 at 18:23.

Buck Moon after 15 days

Next Full Moon is the Buck Moon of July 2005 after 15 days on 21 July 2005 at 11:00.

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 ∠1786"

Lunar disc appears visually 5.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1786" and ∠1887".

Lunation 67 / 1020

The Moon is 28 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 67 of Meeus index or 1020 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.59 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 7 minutes and it is 55 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 1 hour and 23 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 40 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠131.2°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠131.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠158.8°.

Moon before apogee

12 days since point of perigee on 23 June 2005 at 11:49 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 3 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 8 July 2005 at 17:39 in ♌ Leo.

Distance to Moon 401 389 km

The Moon is 401 389 km (249 412 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 3 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 363 km (252 502 mi).

Moon after ascending node

5 days after ascending node on 29 June 2005 at 16:29 in ♈ Aries 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 14 July 2005 at 06:35 in ♎ Libra.

Moon at northern standstill

At 13:08 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠28.208°. Over the upcoming 14 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt southward to face maximum declination of ∠-28.265° at the point of next southern standstill in ♐ Sagittarius on 19 July 2005 at 17:52.

Draconic month

5 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♈ Aries the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 1 day

In 1 day on 6 July 2005 at 12:03 in ♋ Cancer 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