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 39% 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 ♏ Scorpio

Moon is passing about ∠6° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 1 day on 13 January 2015 at 09:47.

Snow Moon after 20 days

Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2015 after 20 days on 3 February 2015 at 23:09.

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 ∠1821"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.9% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1821" and ∠1951".

Lunation 185 / 1138

The Moon is 23 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 185 of Meeus index or 1138 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.48 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 38 minutes and it is 1 hour and 4 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 1 hour and 6 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 3 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠318°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠318° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠338.3°.

Moon after apogee

4 days since point of apogee on 9 January 2015 at 18:17 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 21 January 2015 at 20:06 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 393 598 km

The Moon is 393 598 km (244 570 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 7 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 359 643 km (223 472 mi).

Moon after ascending node

1 day after ascending node on 12 January 2015 at 15:33 in ♎ Libra 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 25 January 2015 at 10:23 in ♈ Aries.

Moon before southern standstill

10 days since the last northern standstill on 3 January 2015 at 17:53 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.650° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.577° at the point of next southern standstill on 18 January 2015 at 06:17 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

1 day since the beginning of this draconic month in ♎ Libra the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 20 January 2015 at 13:14 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