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

Waning Crescent in Capricorn

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 25% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 24 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 ♑ Capricorn

Moon is passing about ∠9° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 2 days on 24 February 2011 at 23:26.

Worm Moon after 20 days

Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2011 after 20 days on 19 March 2011 at 18:10.

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 ∠1850"

Lunar disc appears visually 4.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1850" and ∠1937".

Lunation 137 / 1090

The Moon is 24 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 137 of Meeus index or 1090 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.76 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 18 hours and 15 minutes and it is 29 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2011. 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 5 hours and 31 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 32 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠139.2°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠139.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠167°.

Moon before apogee

8 days since point of perigee on 19 February 2011 at 07:27 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 6 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 6 March 2011 at 07:50 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 387 504 km

The Moon is 387 504 km (240 784 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 6 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 584 km (252 640 mi).

Moon after ascending node

1 day after ascending node on 26 February 2011 at 20:19 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 13 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 13 March 2011 at 11:55 in ♊ Gemini.

Moon after southern standstill

1 day since the last southern standstill on 25 February 2011 at 22:13 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-23.985° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 13 days to face maximum declination of ∠23.825° at the point of next northern standstill on 12 March 2011 at 17:06 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

1 day since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 5 days

In 5 days on 4 March 2011 at 20:46 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