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

Waning Crescent in Cancer

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 5% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 27 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 ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing about ∠9° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

5 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 5 days on 20 July 2022 at 14:18.

Sturgeon Moon after 16 days

Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2022 after 16 days on 12 August 2022 at 01:36.

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 6.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1889".

Lunation 278 / 1231

The Moon is 27 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 278 of Meeus index or 1231 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.63 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 3 minutes and it is 41 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 19 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 44 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠178.8°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠178.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠202°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 10:22 about 13 days since last perigee on 13 July 2022 at 09:08 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 15 days until point of next perigee on 10 August 2022 at 17:14 in ♑ Capricorn.

Distance to Moon 406 276 km

This apogee Moon is 406 276 km (252 448 mi) away from Earth. It is 868 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 433 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon after ascending node

4 days after ascending node on 22 July 2022 at 09:21 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 5 August 2022 at 20:30 in ♏ Scorpio.

Moon at northern standstill

At 09:19 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠26.941°. Over the upcoming 13 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt southward to face maximum declination of ∠-27.024° at the point of next southern standstill in ♑ Capricorn on 9 August 2022 at 06:36.

Draconic month

4 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♉ Taurus the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 2 days

In 2 days on 28 July 2022 at 17:55 in ♋ Cancer 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