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 18% 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 ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing about ∠23° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 3 days on 29 January 2046 at 04:11.

Snow Moon after 19 days

Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2046 after 19 days on 20 February 2046 at 23:44.

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 ∠1844"

Lunar disc appears visually 5.4% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1844" and ∠1947".

Lunation 569 / 1522

The Moon is 25 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 569 of Meeus index or 1522 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.78 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 18 hours and 46 minutes and it is 20 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 6 hours and 2 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 1 minute shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠129.2°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠129.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠159.4°.

Moon before apogee

8 days since point of perigee on 23 January 2046 at 19:02 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 6 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 8 February 2046 at 05:11 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 388 611 km

The Moon is 388 611 km (241 472 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 6 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 331 km (252 482 mi).

Moon before ascending node

9 days after descending node on 23 January 2046 at 06:24 in ♌ Leo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 5 February 2046 at 15:45 in ♒ Aquarius.

Moon at southern standstill

At 11:30 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-27.313°. This is the year's southernmost lunar standstill of 2046. Over the upcoming 14 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠27.295° at the point of next northern standstill in ♊ Gemini on 16 February 2046 at 04:45.

Draconic month

23 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 4 days

In 4 days on 5 February 2046 at 23:10 in ♒ Aquarius 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