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 26% 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 ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing about ∠24° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 2 days on 12 February 2015 at 03:50.

Worm Moon after 19 days

Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2015 after 19 days on 5 March 2015 at 18:06.

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 ∠1898"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.3% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1898" and ∠1943".

Lunation 186 / 1139

The Moon is 24 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 186 of Meeus index or 1139 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.44 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 34 minutes and it is 45 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 2 hours and 10 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 59 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠338.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠338.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠354.5°.

Moon before perigee

8 days since point of apogee on 6 February 2015 at 06:25 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 19 February 2015 at 07:29 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 377 574 km

The Moon is 377 574 km (234 614 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 4 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 356 992 km (221 825 mi).

Moon after ascending node

5 days after ascending node on 8 February 2015 at 17:10 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 7 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 21 February 2015 at 16:05 in ♈ Aries.

Moon at southern standstill

At 17:17 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-18.402°. Over the upcoming 12 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠18.335° at the point of next northern standstill in ♊ Gemini on 27 February 2015 at 07:19.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 4 days

In 4 days on 18 February 2015 at 23:47 in ♒ Aquarius 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