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

Waning Crescent in Capricorn

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 34% 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 ♑ Capricorn

Moon is passing first ∠1° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 1 day on 28 February 2073 at 22:40.

Worm Moon after 21 days

Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2073 after 21 days on 23 March 2073 at 17:17.

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 ∠1869"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1869" and ∠1935".

Lunation 904 / 1857

The Moon is 23 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 904 of Meeus index or 1857 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.77 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 18 hours and 35 minutes and it is 37 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2073. 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 5 hours and 51 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 12 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠140.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠140.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠168.4°.

Moon after perigee

7 days since point of perigee on 23 February 2073 at 05:00 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 10 March 2073 at 03:57 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 383 504 km

The Moon is 383 504 km (238 298 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 7 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 480 km (252 575 mi).

Moon before descending node

8 days after ascending node on 22 February 2073 at 01:28 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 7 March 2073 at 07:16 in ♓ Pisces.

Moon at southern standstill

At 23:21 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-19.001°. This is the year's southernmost lunar standstill of 2073. Over the upcoming 15 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠19.057° at the point of next northern standstill in ♋ Cancer on 17 March 2073 at 17:57.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 8 March 2073 at 20:15 in ♓ Pisces 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