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

Waning Crescent in Libra

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 4% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 27 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 ♎ Libra

Moon is leaving the last ∠3° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♏ Scorpio later.

4 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 4 days on 8 November 2020 at 13:46.

Beaver Moon after 16 days

Next Full Moon is the Beaver Moon of November 2020 after 16 days on 30 November 2020 at 09:30.

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 ∠1973"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.7% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1973" and ∠1940".

Lunation 257 / 1210

The Moon is 27 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 257 of Meeus index or 1210 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.4 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 36 minutes and it is 1 hour and 33 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 8 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 1 minute longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠357°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠357° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠12.4°.

Moon before perigee

13 days since point of apogee on 30 October 2020 at 18:46 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 14 November 2020 at 11:48 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 363 357 km

The Moon is 363 357 km (225 780 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next day until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 357 839 km (222 351 mi).

Moon before descending node

9 days after ascending node on 4 November 2020 at 02:39 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 17 November 2020 at 00:07 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon before southern standstill

7 days since the last northern standstill on 5 November 2020 at 19:30 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠24.813° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠-24.856° at the point of next southern standstill on 18 November 2020 at 11:27 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

9 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 1 day

In 1 day on 15 November 2020 at 05:07 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