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

Waning Crescent in Pisces

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 4% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 27 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 ♓ Pisces

Moon is passing about ∠18° of ♓ Pisces tropical zodiac sector.

5 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 5 days on 26 March 2011 at 12:07.

Pink Moon after 16 days

Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2011 after 16 days on 18 April 2011 at 02:44.

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 ∠1770"

Lunar disc appears visually 8.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1770" and ∠1920".

Lunation 138 / 1091

The Moon is 27 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 138 of Meeus index or 1091 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.74 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 17 hours and 46 minutes and it is 1 hour and 28 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 5 hours and 2 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 1 minute shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠167°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠167° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠190.9°.

Moon before apogee

12 days since point of perigee on 19 March 2011 at 19:09 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 day until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 2 April 2011 at 09:00 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 404 959 km

The Moon is 404 959 km (251 630 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next day until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 656 km (252 684 mi).

Moon after ascending node

6 days after ascending node on 25 March 2011 at 21:09 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 8 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 9 April 2011 at 12:48 in ♊ Gemini.

Moon after southern standstill

7 days since the last southern standstill on 25 March 2011 at 05:02 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-23.716° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠23.569° at the point of next northern standstill on 8 April 2011 at 22:55 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

6 days 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 2 days

In 2 days on 3 April 2011 at 14:32 in ♈ Aries 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