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 9% 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 ♍ Virgo

Moon is leaving the last ∠1° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♎ Libra later.

4 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 4 days on 22 October 2016 at 19:14.

Beaver Moon after 18 days

Next Full Moon is the Beaver Moon of November 2016 after 18 days on 14 November 2016 at 13:52.

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 ∠1801"

Lunar disc appears visually 7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1801" and ∠1931".

Lunation 207 / 1160

The Moon is 26 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 207 of Meeus index or 1160 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.73 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 17 hours and 27 minutes and it is 1 hour and 13 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 43 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 20 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠144.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠144.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠170.6°.

Moon before apogee

10 days since point of perigee on 16 October 2016 at 23:36 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 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 31 October 2016 at 19:29 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 397 964 km

The Moon is 397 964 km (247 283 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 4 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 660 km (252 687 mi).

Moon after ascending node

1 day after ascending node on 26 October 2016 at 01:44 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 13 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 9 November 2016 at 15:57 in ♓ Pisces.

Moon after northern standstill

6 days since the last northern standstill on 20 October 2016 at 23:38 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.619° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.737° at the point of next southern standstill on 4 November 2016 at 13:04 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 30 October 2016 at 17:38 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