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 40% 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 in ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing about ∠15° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 1 day on 24 September 2073 at 12:32.

Hunter Moon after 20 days

Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2073 after 20 days on 16 October 2073 at 01:54.

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 ∠1855"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1855" and ∠1914".

Lunation 911 / 1864

The Moon is 23 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 911 of Meeus index or 1864 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.35 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 29 minutes and it is 23 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2073. 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 15 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 54 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠334.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠334.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠351.1°.

Moon after apogee

6 days since point of apogee on 19 September 2073 at 03:23 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 6 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 1 October 2073 at 22:53 in ♎ Libra.

Distance to Moon 386 358 km

The Moon is 386 358 km (240 072 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 6 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 357 437 km (222 101 mi).

Moon before ascending node

11 days after descending node on 13 September 2073 at 16:02 in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 28 September 2073 at 04:00 in ♌ Leo.

Moon at northern standstill

At 01:43 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠19.692°. Over the upcoming 12 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt southward to face maximum declination of ∠-19.779° at the point of next southern standstill in ♑ Capricorn on 7 October 2073 at 14:29.

Draconic month

24 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♌ Leo the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 5 days

In 5 days on 1 October 2073 at 10:21 in ♎ Libra 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