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

Waning Crescent in Aries

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 11% 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 ♈ Aries

Moon is passing about ∠25° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 3 days on 21 May 2014 at 12:59.

Strawberry Moon after 18 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2014 after 18 days on 13 June 2014 at 04:11.

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 ∠1896"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1896" and ∠1894".

Lunation 177 / 1130

The Moon is 26 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 177 of Meeus index or 1130 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 1 hour and 2 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 ∠76.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠76.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠112.5°.

Moon after perigee

7 days since point of perigee on 18 May 2014 at 11:58 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 8 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 3 June 2014 at 04:25 in ♌ Leo.

Distance to Moon 378 148 km

The Moon is 378 148 km (234 970 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 8 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 956 km (251 628 mi).

Moon in descending node

Moon is in descending node in ♈ Aries at 17:56 crossing the ecliptic from North to South. Lunar position remains south of if for the upcoming 14 days until Moon's next ascending node later on 9 June 2014 at 05:36 in ♎ Libra.

Moon before northern standstill

8 days since the last southern standstill on 16 May 2014 at 20:10 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-18.992° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠19.023° at the point of next northern standstill on 30 May 2014 at 00:38 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

12 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♎ Libra the Moon is navigating from the middle to the last part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 28 May 2014 at 18:40 in ♊ Gemini 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