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

Waning Crescent in Sagittarius

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 17% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 25 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 ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is leaving the last ∠2° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♑ Capricorn later.

3 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 3 days on 2 February 2005 at 07:27.

Snow Moon after 18 days

Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2005 after 18 days on 24 February 2005 at 04:54.

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 ∠1966"

Lunar disc appears visually 1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1966" and ∠1946".

Lunation 62 / 1015

The Moon is 25 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 62 of Meeus index or 1015 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.43 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 25 minutes and it is 17 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2005. 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 and 19 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 50 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠1.4°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠1.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠17.1°.

Moon before perigee

12 days since point of apogee on 23 January 2005 at 18:54 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 2 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 7 February 2005 at 22:09 in ♑ Capricorn.

Distance to Moon 364 633 km

The Moon is 364 633 km (226 572 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 2 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 564 km (222 801 mi).

Moon after descending node

4 days after descending node on 31 January 2005 at 22:49 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 7 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 13 February 2005 at 10:25 in ♈ Aries.

Moon at southern standstill

At 21:10 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-28.071°. Over the upcoming 13 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠28.152° at the point of next northern standstill in ♋ Cancer on 19 February 2005 at 01:13.

Draconic month

19 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♈ Aries the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 8 February 2005 at 22:28 in ♒ Aquarius 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