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

Waning Crescent in Scorpio

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 9% 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 ♏ Scorpio

Moon is passing about ∠14° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector.

4 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 4 days on 5 December 2069 at 12:03.

Cold Moon after 17 days

Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2069 after 17 days on 28 December 2069 at 00:50.

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 ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 9.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1949".

Lunation 864 / 1817

The Moon is 26 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 864 of Meeus index or 1817 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.79 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 19 hours and 1 minute and it is 1 hour and 15 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2069. 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 6 hours and 16 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 47 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠185.4°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠185.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠211.5°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 12:50 about 12 days since last perigee on 27 November 2069 at 21:53 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 21 days until point of next perigee on 31 December 2069 at 15:07 in ♌ Leo.

Distance to Moon 406 042 km

This apogee Moon is 406 042 km (252 303 mi) away from Earth. It is 634 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 667 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon after ascending node

1 day after ascending node on 9 December 2069 at 16:16 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 13 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 23 December 2069 at 17:14 in ♈ Aries.

Moon before southern standstill

10 days since the last northern standstill on 29 November 2069 at 13:04 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠19.315° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠-19.339° at the point of next southern standstill on 13 December 2069 at 16:54 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

1 day since the beginning of this draconic month in ♎ Libra the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 13 December 2069 at 17:38 in ♐ Sagittarius 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