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 40% 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 is entering ♈ Aries

Moon is passing first ∠0° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 1 day on 9 June 2015 at 15:42.

Buck Moon after 21 days

Next Full Moon is the Buck Moon of July 2015 after 21 days on 2 July 2015 at 02:20.

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 ∠1972"

Lunar disc appears visually 4.2% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1972" and ∠1890".

Lunation 190 / 1143

The Moon is 23 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 190 of Meeus index or 1143 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.41 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 52 minutes and it is 1 hour and 27 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 2 hours and 52 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 17 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠48.8°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠48.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠78.1°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 04:39 about 14 days since last apogee on 26 May 2015 at 22:12 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 13 days until point of next apogee on 23 June 2015 at 17:01 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 369 713 km

This perigee Moon is 369 713 km (229 729 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's farthest perigee of 2015. It is 7 205 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 643 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon in descending node

Moon is in descending node in ♈ Aries at 23:30 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 24 June 2015 at 17:23 in ♍ Virgo.

Moon before northern standstill

6 days since the last southern standstill on 3 June 2015 at 21:10 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-18.440° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠18.457° at the point of next northern standstill on 16 June 2015 at 19:47 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 6 days

In 6 days on 16 June 2015 at 14:05 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