Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 2% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 28 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 ∠8° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 6 days on 8 September 2031 at 16:14.
Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2031 after 15 days on 30 September 2031 at 18:58.
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 6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1797" and ∠1908".
The Moon is 28 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 391 of Meeus index or 1344 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 15 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 31 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 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 ∠213.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠245.2°.
4 days since point of apogee on 11 September 2031 at 11:54 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 11 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 27 September 2031 at 07:09 in ♒ Aquarius.
The Moon is 398 851 km (247 835 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 11 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 366 841 km (227 944 mi).
8 days after descending node on 6 September 2031 at 16:34 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 5 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 21 September 2031 at 02:24 in ♏ Scorpio.
6 days since the last northern standstill on 8 September 2031 at 23:27 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠20.623° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠-20.501° at the point of next southern standstill on 23 September 2031 at 05:46 in ♐ Sagittarius.
21 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 1 day on 16 September 2031 at 18:47 in ♍ Virgo 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