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 32% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 23 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 ♈ Aries

Moon is passing first ∠1° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 1 day on 29 May 2054 at 15:03.

Strawberry Moon after 19 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2054 after 19 days on 20 June 2054 at 03:42.

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 ∠1796"

Lunar disc appears visually 5.2% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1796" and ∠1892".

Lunation 672 / 1625

The Moon is 23 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 672 of Meeus index or 1625 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.4 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 40 minutes and it is 1 hour and 46 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 4 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 5 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠288.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠288.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠316.1°.

Moon after apogee

3 days since point of apogee on 28 May 2054 at 00:43 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 8 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 8 June 2054 at 21:43 in ♋ Cancer.

Distance to Moon 399 088 km

The Moon is 399 088 km (247 982 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 8 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 365 007 km (226 805 mi).

Moon after descending node

2 days after descending node on 29 May 2054 at 02:37 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 11 June 2054 at 07:33 in ♍ Virgo.

Moon after southern standstill

7 days since the last southern standstill on 24 May 2054 at 11:01 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-19.115° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠19.164° at the point of next northern standstill on 7 June 2054 at 14:08 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

16 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♍ Virgo the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 5 days

In 5 days on 6 June 2054 at 02:40 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