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

Waning Crescent in Virgo

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 18% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 25 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 ♍ Virgo

Moon is passing about ∠6° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 3 days on 15 October 2014 at 19:12.

Beaver Moon after 18 days

Next Full Moon is the Beaver Moon of November 2014 after 18 days on 6 November 2014 at 22:23.

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 ∠1770"

Lunar disc appears visually 8.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1770" and ∠1927".

Lunation 182 / 1135

The Moon is 25 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 182 of Meeus index or 1135 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.65 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 43 minutes and it is 1 hour and 7 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 2 hours and 59 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 4 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠218.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠218.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠252.3°.

Moon after apogee

1 day since point of apogee on 18 October 2014 at 06:05 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 14 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 3 November 2014 at 00:21 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 405 027 km

The Moon is 405 027 km (251 672 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 14 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 367 871 km (228 584 mi).

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 8 October 2014 at 17:44 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 23 October 2014 at 00:46 in ♎ Libra.

Moon after northern standstill

5 days since the last northern standstill on 13 October 2014 at 13:34 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.517° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.539° at the point of next southern standstill on 28 October 2014 at 01:03 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

23 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♎ Libra the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 4 days

In 4 days on 23 October 2014 at 21:57 in ♎ Libra 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