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

Waning Crescent in Virgo

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 31% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 24 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 ♍ Virgo

Moon is leaving the last ∠4° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♎ Libra later.

1 day after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 1 day on 23 November 2081 at 19:49.

Cold Moon after 20 days

Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2081 after 20 days on 16 December 2081 at 04:31.

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 ∠1973"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.5% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1973" and ∠1944".

Lunation 1012 / 1965

The Moon is 24 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 1012 of Meeus index or 1965 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.48 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 32 minutes and it is 2 hours and 20 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 12 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 57 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠29.7°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠29.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠52.5°.

Moon before perigee

14 days since point of apogee on 11 November 2081 at 04:54 in ♓ Pisces the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 27 November 2081 at 03:46 in ♎ Libra.

Distance to Moon 363 299 km

The Moon is 363 299 km (225 744 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next day until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 367 156 km (228 140 mi).

Moon after descending node

1 day after descending node on 24 November 2081 at 11:52 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 12 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 7 December 2081 at 17:00 in ♓ Pisces.

Moon before southern standstill

6 days since the last northern standstill on 19 November 2081 at 01:19 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.201° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠-28.151° at the point of next southern standstill on 1 December 2081 at 21:51 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

14 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♓ Pisces the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 5 days

In 5 days on 30 November 2081 at 14:36 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