Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 10% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 26 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 ∠9° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 4 days on 1 May 2024 at 11:27.
Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2024 after 18 days on 23 May 2024 at 13:53.
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 3.5% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1969" and ∠1902".
The Moon is 26 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 300 of Meeus index or 1253 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 1 minute and it is 15 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2024. 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 3 hours and 43 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 26 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 ∠17.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠36°.
Moon is at perigee at 22:11 about 15 days since last apogee on 20 April 2024 at 02:09 in ♍ Virgo 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 17 May 2024 at 19:00 in ♍ Virgo.
This perigee Moon is 363 166 km (225 661 mi) away from Earth. It is 658 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 7 190 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.
Moon is in ascending node in ♈ Aries at 21:54 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 14 days until Moon's next descending node later on 19 May 2024 at 16:35 in ♎ Libra.
6 days since the last southern standstill on 28 April 2024 at 14:28 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.509° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.465° at the point of next northern standstill on 11 May 2024 at 07:45 in ♋ Cancer.
At 21:54 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 2 days on 8 May 2024 at 03:22 in ♉ Taurus 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