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

Last Quarter in Taurus

Last Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 54% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 21 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Last Quarter phase is on 21 August 2011 at 21:55 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 in ♉ Taurus

Moon is passing about ∠24° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.

Harvest Moon after 21 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2011 after 21 days on 12 September 2011 at 09:27.

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 ∠1788"

Lunar disc appears visually 5.9% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1788" and ∠1897".

Lunation 143 / 1096

The Moon is 21 days old and navigating through the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 143 of Meeus index or 1096 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.35 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 24 minutes and it is 19 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 20 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 49 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠312.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠312.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠333.4°.

Moon after apogee

2 days since point of apogee on 18 August 2011 at 16:23 in ♈ Aries 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 30 August 2011 at 17:35 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 400 903 km

The Moon is 400 903 km (249 110 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 9 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 360 858 km (224 227 mi).

Moon before descending node

12 days after ascending node on 9 August 2011 at 06:35 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 23 August 2011 at 17:23 in ♊ Gemini.

Moon before northern standstill

12 days since the last southern standstill on 8 August 2011 at 23:15 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-23.270° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠23.149° at the point of next northern standstill on 23 August 2011 at 12:17 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

12 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 7 days

In 7 days on 29 August 2011 at 03:04 in ♍ Virgo 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