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

Waning Crescent in Virgo

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 23% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 24 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 ♍ Virgo

Moon is passing about ∠17° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 2 days on 3 November 2015 at 12:24.

Beaver Moon after 19 days

Next Full Moon is the Beaver Moon of November 2015 after 19 days on 25 November 2015 at 22:44.

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 ∠1774"

Lunar disc appears visually 8.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1774" and ∠1936".

Lunation 195 / 1148

The Moon is 24 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 195 of Meeus index or 1148 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.74 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 17 hours and 41 minutes and it is 59 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2015. 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 57 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 6 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠192.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠192.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠220.3°.

Moon before apogee

10 days since point of perigee on 26 October 2015 at 12:59 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 7 November 2015 at 21:48 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 403 996 km

The Moon is 403 996 km (251 031 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next day until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 724 km (252 105 mi).

Moon before ascending node

12 days after descending node on 25 October 2015 at 07:37 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 7 November 2015 at 15:53 in ♍ Virgo.

Moon after northern standstill

6 days since the last northern standstill on 31 October 2015 at 09:02 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.241° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.331° at the point of next southern standstill on 15 November 2015 at 00:39 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

26 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♎ Libra the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 5 days

In 5 days on 11 November 2015 at 17:47 in ♏ Scorpio 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