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

Last Quarter in Virgo

Last Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 42% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 22 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Last Quarter phase is on 7 December 2001 at 19:52 UTC.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises at midnight and sets at noon. It is visible to the south in the morning.

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 passing about ∠25° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

Cold Moon after 21 days

Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2001 after 21 days on 30 December 2001 at 10:41.

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 ∠1970"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1970" and ∠1948".

Lunation 23 / 976

The Moon is 22 days old and navigating through the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 23 of Meeus index or 976 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.59 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 7 minutes and it is 2 hours and 34 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 23 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 40 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠53.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠53.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠86.2°.

Moon after perigee

1 day since point of perigee on 6 December 2001 at 22:48 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 13 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 21 December 2001 at 13:02 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 363 812 km

The Moon is 363 812 km (226 062 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 13 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 634 km (251 428 mi).

Moon after ascending node

6 days after ascending node on 2 December 2001 at 05:30 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 15 December 2001 at 04:32 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon after northern standstill

5 days since the last northern standstill on 3 December 2001 at 06:54 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠24.246° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠-24.250° at the point of next southern standstill on 16 December 2001 at 07:51 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

6 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 14 December 2001 at 20:48 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