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 53% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 22 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Last Quarter phase is on 16 December 2003 at 17:42 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 ∠21° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

Wolf Moon after 22 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2004 after 22 days on 7 January 2004 at 15:40.

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 ∠1900"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1900" and ∠1950".

Lunation 48 / 1001

The Moon is 22 days old and navigating through the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 48 of Meeus index or 1001 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.45 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 44 minutes and it is 38 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 2 hours shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 9 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠359.8°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠359.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠15.5°.

Moon before perigee

8 days since point of apogee on 7 December 2003 at 12:05 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 5 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 22 December 2003 at 11:53 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Distance to Moon 377 181 km

The Moon is 377 181 km (234 369 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 5 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 342 km (222 663 mi).

Moon before descending node

9 days after ascending node on 6 December 2003 at 16:00 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 20 December 2003 at 16:07 in ♏ Scorpio.

Moon after northern standstill

5 days since the last northern standstill on 10 December 2003 at 15:56 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠27.057° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠-27.044° at the point of next southern standstill on 23 December 2003 at 20:12 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 23 December 2003 at 09:43 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