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

Waning Crescent in Cancer

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 8% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 26 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 ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing about ∠11° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

4 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 4 days on 31 July 2059 at 16:43.

Sturgeon Moon after 17 days

Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2059 after 17 days on 23 August 2059 at 09:42.

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 ∠1829"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.4% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1829" and ∠1892".

Lunation 736 / 1689

The Moon is 26 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 736 of Meeus index or 1689 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.57 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 39 minutes and it is 1 hour and 44 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 55 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 8 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠119.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠119.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠149.3°.

Moon before apogee

9 days since point of perigee on 26 July 2059 at 20:05 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 5 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 11 August 2059 at 09:12 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 391 964 km

The Moon is 391 964 km (243 555 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 5 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 129 km (252 357 mi).

Moon after ascending node

3 days after ascending node on 1 August 2059 at 19:16 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 16 August 2059 at 07:59 in ♏ Scorpio.

Moon at northern standstill

At 06:00 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠26.681°. Over the upcoming 14 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt southward to face maximum declination of ∠-26.789° at the point of next southern standstill in ♑ Capricorn on 19 August 2059 at 20:09.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 2 days

In 2 days on 8 August 2059 at 07:37 in ♌ Leo 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