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

Waning Crescent in Libra

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 9% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 26 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 ♎ Libra

Moon is passing about ∠10° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector.

4 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 4 days on 3 November 2015 at 12:24.

Beaver Moon after 17 days

Next Full Moon is the Beaver Moon of November 2015 after 17 days on 25 November 2015 at 22:44.

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 ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 9.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1937".

Lunation 195 / 1148

The Moon is 26 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 195 of Meeus index or 1148 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.74 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 17 hours and 41 minutes and it is 59 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2015. 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 4 hours and 57 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 6 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠192.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠192.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠220.3°.

Moon after apogee

1 day since point of apogee on 7 November 2015 at 21:48 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 15 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 23 November 2015 at 20:06 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 405 480 km

The Moon is 405 480 km (251 954 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 15 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 362 818 km (225 445 mi).

Moon after ascending node

1 day after ascending node on 7 November 2015 at 15:53 in ♍ Virgo 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 21 November 2015 at 13:56 in ♓ Pisces.

Moon before southern standstill

8 days since the last northern standstill on 31 October 2015 at 09:02 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.241° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.331° at the point of next southern standstill on 15 November 2015 at 00:39 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 11 November 2015 at 17:47 in ♏ Scorpio 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