Last Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 54% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 21 days old.
* The exact date and time of this Last Quarter phase is on 9 May 2026 at 21:10 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 ∠14° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2026 after 21 days on 31 May 2026 at 08:45.
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 4.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1816" and ∠1900".
The Moon is 21 days old and navigating through the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 325 of Meeus index or 1278 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 9 minutes and it is 1 hour and 16 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 4 hours and 35 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 34 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 ∠330.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠347.5°.
4 days since point of apogee on 4 May 2026 at 22:30 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 8 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 17 May 2026 at 13:48 in ♉ Taurus.
The Moon is 394 629 km (245 211 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 8 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 074 km (222 497 mi).
12 days after descending node on 26 April 2026 at 14:36 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 11 May 2026 at 04:36 in ♓ Pisces.
4 days since the last southern standstill on 5 May 2026 at 11:35 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.109° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 9 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.051° at the point of next northern standstill on 18 May 2026 at 19:38 in ♊ Gemini.
25 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♓ Pisces the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 7 days on 16 May 2026 at 20:01 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