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

Waning Crescent in Cancer

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 14% 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 ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing about ∠12° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 3 days on 15 August 2017 at 01:15.

Harvest Moon after 18 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2017 after 18 days on 6 September 2017 at 07:03.

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 ∠1966"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.6% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1966" and ∠1896".

Lunation 217 / 1170

The Moon is 25 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 217 of Meeus index or 1170 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.36 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 45 minutes and it is 2 hours and 15 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 3 hours and 59 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 10 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠27.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠27.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠49.5°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 13:14 about 15 days since last apogee on 2 August 2017 at 17:55 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 11 days until point of next apogee on 30 August 2017 at 11:25 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Distance to Moon 366 129 km

This perigee Moon is 366 129 km (227 502 mi) away from Earth. It is 3 621 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 4 227 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 8 August 2017 at 10:56 in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 21 August 2017 at 10:34 in ♌ Leo.

Moon at northern standstill

At 06:50 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠19.381°. Over the upcoming 13 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt southward to face maximum declination of ∠-19.393° at the point of next southern standstill in ♑ Capricorn on 1 September 2017 at 02:03.

Draconic month

24 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 3 days

In 3 days on 21 August 2017 at 18:30 in ♌ Leo 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