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

Waning Crescent in Sagittarius

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 17% 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 is entering ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing first ∠0° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 3 days on 6 January 2021 at 09:37.

Wolf Moon after 19 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2021 after 19 days on 28 January 2021 at 19:16.

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 0.7% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1966" and ∠1951".

Lunation 259 / 1212

The Moon is 25 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 259 of Meeus index or 1212 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.53 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 44 minutes and it is 1 hour and 21 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 same as the mean

The length of the current synodic month is equal to the mean synodic month length. It is %hours_to_shortest% and %minutes_to_shortest% longer than the 21st century's shortest and %hours_to_longest% and %minutes_to_longest% shorter than the 21st century's longest synodic months.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠30.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠30.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠53.8°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 15:39 about 15 days since last apogee on 24 December 2020 at 16:32 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 12 days until point of next apogee on 21 January 2021 at 13:11 in ♉ Taurus.

Distance to Moon 367 390 km

This perigee Moon is 367 390 km (228 286 mi) away from Earth. It is 4 882 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 2 966 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before descending node

11 days after ascending node on 28 December 2020 at 15:03 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 10 January 2021 at 20:15 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon before southern standstill

10 days since the last northern standstill on 30 December 2020 at 07:53 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠24.868° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠-24.870° at the point of next southern standstill on 12 January 2021 at 08:18 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

11 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 3 days

In 3 days on 13 January 2021 at 05:00 in ♑ Capricorn 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