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

Waning Crescent in Taurus

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 22% 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 ♉ Taurus

Moon is passing about ∠23° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 2 days on 8 July 2015 at 20:24.

Buck Moon after 19 days

Next Full Moon is the Buck Moon of July 2015 after 19 days on 31 July 2015 at 10:43.

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 ∠1924"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.9% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1924" and ∠1887".

Lunation 191 / 1144

The Moon is 25 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 191 of Meeus index or 1144 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.47 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 19 minutes and it is 2 hours and 10 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 1 hour and 25 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 44 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠78.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠78.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠112.8°.

Moon after perigee

5 days since point of perigee on 5 July 2015 at 18:54 in ♒ Aquarius 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 21 July 2015 at 11:02 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 372 541 km

The Moon is 372 541 km (231 486 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 9 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 837 km (251 554 mi).

Moon after descending node

3 days after descending node on 8 July 2015 at 00:07 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 21 July 2015 at 19:32 in ♍ Virgo.

Moon before northern standstill

10 days since the last southern standstill on 1 July 2015 at 06:48 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-18.445° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠18.417° at the point of next northern standstill on 14 July 2015 at 04:24 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

16 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♍ Virgo the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 4 days

In 4 days on 16 July 2015 at 01:24 in ♋ Cancer 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