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 3 October 2026 at 13:25 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 ∠10° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2026 after 22 days on 26 October 2026 at 04:12.
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 2.8% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1972" and ∠1918".
The Moon is 22 days old and navigating through the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 330 of Meeus index or 1283 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 23 minutes and it is 2 hours and 49 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. 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 21 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 48 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 ∠61.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠94.5°.
1 day since point of perigee on 1 October 2026 at 20:41 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 13 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 16 October 2026 at 22:56 in ♐ Sagittarius.
The Moon is 363 464 km (225 846 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 13 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 639 km (251 431 mi).
9 days after ascending node on 24 September 2026 at 02:40 in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 7 October 2026 at 01:19 in ♌ Leo.
1 day since the last northern standstill on 2 October 2026 at 11:35 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠27.989° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠-27.892° at the point of next southern standstill on 16 October 2026 at 02:45 in ♐ Sagittarius.
9 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.
In 7 days on 10 October 2026 at 15:50 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