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 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 in ♏ Scorpio

Moon is passing about ∠24° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector.

4 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 4 days on 24 December 2070 at 09:31.

Wolf Moon after 18 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2071 after 18 days on 16 January 2071 at 02:35.

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 ∠1789"

Lunar disc appears visually 8.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1789" and ∠1951".

Lunation 877 / 1830

The Moon is 25 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 877 of Meeus index or 1830 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.81 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 19 hours and 22 minutes and it is 22 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2070. 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 38 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 25 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠163.2°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠163.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠187.9°.

Moon after perigee

2 days since point of perigee on 26 December 2070 at 07:40 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 3 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 31 December 2070 at 14:10 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Distance to Moon 400 673 km

The Moon is 400 673 km (248 967 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 3 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 681 km (252 700 mi).

Moon after ascending node

3 days after ascending node on 25 December 2070 at 04:13 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 11 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 8 January 2071 at 19:49 in ♈ Aries.

Moon before southern standstill

10 days since the last northern standstill on 17 December 2070 at 17:05 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.546° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.553° at the point of next southern standstill on 31 December 2070 at 07:48 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

3 days 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 4 days

In 4 days on 1 January 2071 at 12:15 in ♑ Capricorn 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