Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 1% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 28 days old.
The moon rises after midnight to early morning and sets in the afternoon. It is visible in the early morning low to the east.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing about ∠5° of ♌ Leo tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 5 days on 4 August 2018 at 18:18.
Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2018 after 15 days on 26 August 2018 at 11:56.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 4.1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1973" and ∠1893".
The Moon is 28 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 229 of Meeus index or 1182 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 10 minutes and it is 54 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increase with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at apogee (∠180°).
The length of the current synodic month is 5 hours and 34 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 35 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠356° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠11.2°.
Moon is at perigee at 18:05 about 14 days since last apogee on 27 July 2018 at 05:44 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 12 days until point of next apogee on 23 August 2018 at 11:23 in ♑ Capricorn.
This perigee Moon is 358 083 km (222 502 mi) away from Earth. It is 4 425 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 12 273 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.
Moon is in ascending node in ♋ Cancer at 13:40 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next descending node later on 24 August 2018 at 04:51 in ♒ Aquarius.
1 day since the last northern standstill on 8 August 2018 at 22:33 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠20.757° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠-20.773° at the point of next southern standstill on 22 August 2018 at 02:58 in ♑ Capricorn.
At 13:40 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.
In 1 day on 11 August 2018 at 09:58 in ♌ Leo 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.
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