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

Waning Crescent in Leo

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 36% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 23 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 ♌ Leo

Moon is passing about ∠23° of ♌ Leo tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 1 day on 29 October 2002 at 05:28.

Beaver Moon after 20 days

Next Full Moon is the Beaver Moon of November 2002 after 20 days on 20 November 2002 at 01:34.

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 ∠1930"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1930" and ∠1933".

Lunation 34 / 987

The Moon is 23 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 34 of Meeus index or 987 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.39 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 17 minutes and it is 1 hour and 43 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 3 hours and 27 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 42 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠358.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠358.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠14°.

Moon before perigee

10 days since point of apogee on 20 October 2002 at 04:41 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 4 November 2002 at 00:50 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 371 393 km

The Moon is 371 393 km (230 773 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 4 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 154 km (222 547 mi).

Moon after ascending node

5 days after ascending node on 24 October 2002 at 18:18 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 7 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 6 November 2002 at 15:22 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon after northern standstill

3 days since the last northern standstill on 27 October 2002 at 06:34 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠25.735° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 9 days to face maximum declination of ∠-25.781° at the point of next southern standstill on 8 November 2002 at 20:35 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

5 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 5 days

In 5 days on 4 November 2002 at 20:34 in ♏ Scorpio 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