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 16% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 25 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 leaving the last ∠1° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♓ Pisces later.

3 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 3 days on 3 April 2013 at 04:37.

Pink Moon after 19 days

Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2013 after 19 days on 25 April 2013 at 19:57.

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 ∠1911"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.3% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1911" and ∠1917".

Lunation 163 / 1116

The Moon is 25 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 163 of Meeus index or 1116 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.57 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 44 minutes and it is 1 hour and 9 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 longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 3 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠73.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠73.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠110.3°.

Moon after perigee

6 days since point of perigee on 31 March 2013 at 03:55 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 9 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 15 April 2013 at 22:21 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 375 005 km

The Moon is 375 005 km (233 017 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 9 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 865 km (251 571 mi).

Moon before descending node

7 days after ascending node on 30 March 2013 at 05:55 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 12 April 2013 at 12:12 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon after southern standstill

4 days since the last southern standstill on 1 April 2013 at 12:03 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-20.250° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠20.189° at the point of next northern standstill on 15 April 2013 at 05:29 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

7 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 10 April 2013 at 09:35 in ♈ Aries 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