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

Waning Crescent in Aries

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 ♈ Aries

Moon is passing about ∠12° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 3 days on 13 May 2031 at 19:07.

Strawberry Moon after 18 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2031 after 18 days on 5 June 2031 at 11:58.

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 ∠1865"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1865" and ∠1897".

Lunation 387 / 1340

The Moon is 25 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 387 of Meeus index or 1340 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.6 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 20 minutes and it is 47 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 1 hour and 36 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 27 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠106.4°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠106.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠139.8°.

Moon before apogee

8 days since point of perigee on 9 May 2031 at 07:28 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 25 May 2031 at 02:08 in ♋ Cancer.

Distance to Moon 384 241 km

The Moon is 384 241 km (238 756 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 7 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 723 km (252 105 mi).

Moon before descending node

9 days after ascending node on 7 May 2031 at 22:55 in ♏ Scorpio 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 21 May 2031 at 03:26 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon before northern standstill

8 days since the last southern standstill on 9 May 2031 at 07:56 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-21.092° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠21.091° at the point of next northern standstill on 22 May 2031 at 19:41 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 21 May 2031 at 07:17 in ♊ Gemini 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