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 37% 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 ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is leaving the last ∠3° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♑ Capricorn later.

1 day after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 1 day on 29 February 2008 at 02:18.

Worm Moon after 20 days

Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2008 after 20 days on 21 March 2008 at 18:40.

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 ∠1782"

Lunar disc appears visually 8.3% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1782" and ∠1936".

Lunation 100 / 1053

The Moon is 23 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 100 of Meeus index or 1053 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.56 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 30 minutes and it is 2 hours and 49 minutes longer 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 46 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 17 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠280°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠280° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠310.8°.

Moon after apogee

2 days since point of apogee on 28 February 2008 at 01:27 in ♏ Scorpio the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 9 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 10 March 2008 at 21:39 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 402 204 km

The Moon is 402 204 km (249 918 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 9 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 366 302 km (227 610 mi).

Moon before ascending node

9 days after descending node on 20 February 2008 at 20:01 in ♌ Leo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 6 March 2008 at 06:52 in ♒ Aquarius.

Moon at southern standstill

At 08:03 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-28.030°. This is the year's southernmost lunar standstill of 2008. Over the upcoming 12 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠27.985° at the point of next northern standstill in ♊ Gemini on 14 March 2008 at 11:33.

Draconic month

22 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 7 March 2008 at 17:14 in ♓ Pisces 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