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

Waning Crescent in Sagittarius

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 16% 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 ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing about ∠17° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 3 days on 19 January 2085 at 01:26.

Snow Moon after 18 days

Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2085 after 18 days on 9 February 2085 at 18:24.

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 ∠1940"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1940" and ∠1949".

Lunation 1051 / 2004

The Moon is 25 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 1051 of Meeus index or 2004 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.46 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 1 minute and it is 34 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2085. 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 44 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 25 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠345.2°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠345.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠0.9°.

Moon before perigee

10 days since point of apogee on 12 January 2085 at 05:03 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 3 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 25 January 2085 at 18:46 in ♑ Capricorn.

Distance to Moon 369 443 km

The Moon is 369 443 km (229 561 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 3 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 356 735 km (221 665 mi).

Moon before ascending node

12 days after descending node on 10 January 2085 at 01:55 in ♋ Cancer the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 24 January 2085 at 03:41 in ♑ Capricorn.

Moon at southern standstill

At 16:49 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-24.889°. This is the year's southernmost lunar standstill of 2085. Over the upcoming 13 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠24.854° at the point of next northern standstill in ♊ Gemini on 4 February 2085 at 12:06.

Draconic month

25 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 25 January 2085 at 20:06 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