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 22% 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 ♏ Scorpio

Moon is passing about ∠11° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 2 days on 25 December 2097 at 15:20.

Wolf Moon after 19 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2098 after 19 days on 17 January 2098 at 10:36.

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 ∠1833"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.2% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1833" and ∠1951".

Lunation 1211 / 2164

The Moon is 24 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 1211 of Meeus index or 2164 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.8 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 19 hours and 6 minutes and it is 16 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2097. 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 6 hours and 22 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 41 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠145.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠145.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠172.3°.

Moon before apogee

8 days since point of perigee on 19 December 2097 at 17:43 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 5 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 3 January 2098 at 11:59 in ♑ Capricorn.

Distance to Moon 391 004 km

The Moon is 391 004 km (242 959 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 5 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 688 km (252 704 mi).

Moon after descending node

1 day after descending node on 27 December 2097 at 16:48 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 13 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 11 January 2098 at 08:24 in ♈ Aries.

Moon before southern standstill

9 days since the last northern standstill on 19 December 2097 at 11:51 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠27.860° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠-27.839° at the point of next southern standstill on 1 January 2098 at 23:06 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

13 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♉ Taurus the Moon is navigating from the middle to the last part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 5 days

In 5 days on 2 January 2098 at 14:32 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