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

Waning Crescent in Taurus

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 ♉ Taurus

Moon is leaving the last ∠3° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♊ Gemini later.

5 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 5 days on 3 June 2048 at 12:05.

Strawberry Moon after 16 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2048 after 16 days on 26 June 2048 at 02:08.

Moderate tide

There is medium ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at very acute angle, so their combined tidal force is moderate.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1772"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.4% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1772" and ∠1890".

Lunation 598 / 1551

The Moon is 27 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 598 of Meeus index or 1551 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.66 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 52 minutes and it is 38 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2048. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to decrease with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at perigee (∠0° or ∠360°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 8 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 55 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠163°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠163° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠186.1°.

Moon before apogee

12 days since point of perigee on 27 May 2048 at 23:56 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 day until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 10 June 2048 at 20:20 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 404 505 km

The Moon is 404 505 km (251 348 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next day until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 480 km (252 575 mi).

Moon before descending node

11 days after ascending node on 29 May 2048 at 03:20 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 12 June 2048 at 01:40 in ♊ Gemini.

Moon before northern standstill

11 days since the last southern standstill on 28 May 2048 at 12:36 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-23.749° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠23.745° at the point of next northern standstill on 11 June 2048 at 06:28 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

11 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 2 days

In 2 days on 11 June 2048 at 12:50 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