Last Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 48% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 22 days old.
* The exact date and time of this Last Quarter phase is on 30 August 2021 at 07:13 UTC.
The moon rises at midnight and sets at noon. It is visible to the south in the morning.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing about ∠9° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2021 after 21 days on 20 September 2021 at 23:55.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 7.2% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1901".
The Moon is 22 days old and navigating through the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 267 of Meeus index or 1220 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 2 minutes and it is 48 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 42 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 27 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 ∠264.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠297.8°.
Moon is at apogee at 02:22 about 12 days since last perigee on 17 August 2021 at 09:23 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 11 days until point of next perigee on 11 September 2021 at 10:05 in ♏ Scorpio.
This apogee Moon is 404 100 km (251 096 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's closest apogee of 2021. It is 1 308 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 49 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.
Moon is in ascending node in ♊ Gemini at 05:13 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 12 September 2021 at 16:35 in ♏ Scorpio.
11 days since the last southern standstill on 18 August 2021 at 22:24 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.761° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠25.868° at the point of next northern standstill on 2 September 2021 at 00:23 in ♋ Cancer.
At 05:13 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 7 days on 7 September 2021 at 00:52 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.
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