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

Waning Crescent in Gemini

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 7% 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 ♊ Gemini

Moon is leaving the last ∠2° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♋ Cancer later.

4 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 4 days on 17 July 2006 at 19:13.

Sturgeon Moon after 17 days

Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2006 after 17 days on 9 August 2006 at 10:54.

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 ∠1855"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1855" and ∠1889".

Lunation 80 / 1033

The Moon is 26 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 80 of Meeus index or 1033 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.52 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 26 minutes and it is 2 hours and 13 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 18 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 51 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠97.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠97.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠131.2°.

Moon before apogee

8 days since point of perigee on 13 July 2006 at 17:35 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 29 July 2006 at 13:02 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 386 453 km

The Moon is 386 453 km (240 131 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 7 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 405 km (251 907 mi).

Moon after ascending node

6 days after ascending node on 15 July 2006 at 20:25 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 7 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 29 July 2006 at 16:58 in ♍ Virgo.

Moon at northern standstill

At 14:34 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠28.515°. Over the upcoming 14 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt southward to face maximum declination of ∠-28.594° at the point of next southern standstill in ♐ Sagittarius on 6 August 2006 at 04:11.

Draconic month

6 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♓ Pisces the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 2 days

In 2 days on 25 July 2006 at 04:31 in ♌ Leo 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