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 38% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 23 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 passing about ∠15° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 1 day on 23 July 2011 at 05:02.

Sturgeon Moon after 20 days

Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2011 after 20 days on 13 August 2011 at 18:58.

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 ∠1783"

Lunar disc appears visually 5.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1783" and ∠1889".

Lunation 142 / 1095

The Moon is 23 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 142 of Meeus index or 1095 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.41 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 46 minutes and it is 1 hour and 22 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. 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 2 hours and 58 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 11 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠283.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠283.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠312.1°.

Moon after apogee

2 days since point of apogee on 21 July 2011 at 22:46 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 9 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 2 August 2011 at 20:59 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 401 980 km

The Moon is 401 980 km (249 779 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 9 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 365 756 km (227 270 mi).

Moon before descending node

11 days after ascending node on 13 July 2011 at 02:27 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 27 July 2011 at 12:03 in ♊ Gemini.

Moon before northern standstill

11 days since the last southern standstill on 12 July 2011 at 16:51 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-23.383° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠23.333° at the point of next northern standstill on 27 July 2011 at 03:02 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

11 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 30 July 2011 at 18:40 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