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

Last Quarter in Cancer

Last Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 52% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 22 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Last Quarter phase is on 29 September 2002 at 17:03 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 is entering ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing first ∠4° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

Hunter Moon after 21 days

Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2002 after 21 days on 21 October 2002 at 07:20.

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 ∠1851"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.4% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1851" and ∠1916".

Lunation 33 / 986

The Moon is 22 days old and navigating through the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 33 of Meeus index or 986 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.34 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 7 minutes and it is 1 hour and 10 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. 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 37 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 32 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠343.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠343.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠358.6°.

Moon after apogee

6 days since point of apogee on 23 September 2002 at 03:26 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 6 October 2002 at 13:17 in ♎ Libra.

Distance to Moon 387 251 km

The Moon is 387 251 km (240 627 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 7 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 356 920 km (221 780 mi).

Moon after ascending node

1 day after ascending node on 27 September 2002 at 16:06 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 10 October 2002 at 07:07 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon before northern standstill

14 days since the last southern standstill on 15 September 2002 at 05:34 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.377° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠25.530° at the point of next northern standstill on 30 September 2002 at 00:04 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

1 day 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 6 October 2002 at 11:17 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