Last Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 51% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 22 days old.
* The exact date and time of this Last Quarter phase is on 6 October 2023 at 13:48 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 ∠12° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2023 after 22 days on 28 October 2023 at 20:24.
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 6.4% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1801" and ∠1920".
The Moon is 22 days old and navigating through the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 293 of Meeus index or 1246 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 15 minutes and it is 43 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2023. 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 3 hours and 31 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 32 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠202.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠232.5°.
8 days since point of perigee on 28 September 2023 at 01:05 in ♓ Pisces the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 3 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 10 October 2023 at 03:41 in ♌ Leo.
The Moon is 397 977 km (247 291 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 3 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 426 km (251 920 mi).
5 days after ascending node on 30 September 2023 at 16:49 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 8 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 15 October 2023 at 01:11 in ♎ Libra.
1 day since the last northern standstill on 5 October 2023 at 20:31 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.294° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 13 days to face maximum declination of ∠-28.305° at the point of next southern standstill on 20 October 2023 at 09:19 in ♑ Capricorn.
5 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♈ Aries the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.
In 8 days on 14 October 2023 at 17:55 in ♎ Libra 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