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 is entering ♈ Aries

Moon is passing first ∠4° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 3 days on 5 May 2059 at 01:29.

Flower Moon after 18 days

Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2059 after 18 days on 27 May 2059 at 08:04.

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 ∠1963"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.2% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1963" and ∠1901".

Lunation 733 / 1686

The Moon is 25 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 733 of Meeus index or 1686 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.41 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 47 minutes and it is 55 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 58 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 12 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠30°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠30° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠53.2°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 06:41 about 15 days since last apogee on 22 April 2059 at 12:03 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 11 days until point of next apogee on 20 May 2059 at 06:41 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 366 831 km

This perigee Moon is 366 831 km (227 938 mi) away from Earth. It is 4 323 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 3 525 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

9 days after descending node on 29 April 2059 at 07:01 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 12 May 2059 at 04:37 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon after southern standstill

6 days since the last southern standstill on 2 May 2059 at 11:32 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-26.654° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠26.665° at the point of next northern standstill on 15 May 2059 at 08:44 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 11 May 2059 at 19:15 in ♉ Taurus 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