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

Last Quarter in Aries

Last Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 53% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 21 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Last Quarter phase is on 28 June 2005 at 18:23 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 ♈ Aries

Moon is passing first ∠3° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

Buck Moon after 22 days

Next Full Moon is the Buck Moon of July 2005 after 22 days on 21 July 2005 at 11:00.

Moderate tide

There is medium ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at very acute angle, so their combined tidal force is moderate.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1927"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1927" and ∠1887".

Lunation 67 / 1020

The Moon is 21 days old and navigating through the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 67 of Meeus index or 1020 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 55 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 ∠131.2°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠131.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠158.8°.

Moon after perigee

5 days since point of perigee on 23 June 2005 at 11:49 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 10 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 8 July 2005 at 17:39 in ♌ Leo.

Distance to Moon 371 921 km

The Moon is 371 921 km (231 101 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 10 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 363 km (252 502 mi).

Moon before ascending node

11 days after descending node on 17 June 2005 at 03:59 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 29 June 2005 at 16:29 in ♈ Aries.

Moon after southern standstill

6 days since the last southern standstill on 22 June 2005 at 07:59 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.214° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.208° at the point of next northern standstill on 5 July 2005 at 13:08 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

25 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 8 days

In 8 days on 6 July 2005 at 12:03 in ♋ Cancer 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