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

Waning Crescent in Scorpio

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 12% 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 ♏ Scorpio

Moon is leaving the last ∠3° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♐ Sagittarius later.

3 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 3 days on 25 December 2013 at 13:48.

Wolf Moon after 17 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2014 after 17 days on 16 January 2014 at 04:52.

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 ∠1929"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1929" and ∠1951".

Lunation 172 / 1125

The Moon is 26 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 172 of Meeus index or 1125 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.45 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 52 minutes and it is 28 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2013. 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 1 hour and 52 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 17 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠336.4°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠336.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠353°.

Moon before perigee

9 days since point of apogee on 19 December 2013 at 23:49 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 3 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 1 January 2014 at 21:00 in ♑ Capricorn.

Distance to Moon 371 570 km

The Moon is 371 570 km (230 883 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 3 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 356 922 km (221 781 mi).

Moon after ascending node

1 day after ascending node on 28 December 2013 at 00:21 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 9 January 2014 at 11:26 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon before southern standstill

12 days since the last northern standstill on 17 December 2013 at 01:00 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠19.570° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-19.537° at the point of next southern standstill on 31 December 2013 at 04:49 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

1 day 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 2 days

In 2 days on 1 January 2014 at 11:14 in ♑ Capricorn 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