Waning Crescent Moon
Waning Crescent MoonImage credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.(large image)

Waning Crescent in Aquarius

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 23% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 24 days old.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises after midnight to early morning and sets in the afternoon. It is visible in the early morning low to the east.

Moon phases on nearby dates

Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.

Upcoming main moon phases

Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.

Moon phase and lunation details

Moon in ♒ Aquarius

Moon is passing about ∠18° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 2 days on 2 April 2043 at 18:56.

Pink Moon after 18 days

Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2043 after 18 days on 24 April 2043 at 07:23.

Moderate tide

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.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1879"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1879" and ∠1918".

Lunation 534 / 1487

The Moon is 24 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 534 of Meeus index or 1487 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.41 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 57 minutes and it is 1 hour and 42 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°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 47 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 22 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠327.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠327.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠345.1°.

Moon before perigee

7 days since point of apogee on 29 March 2043 at 05:28 in ♏ Scorpio the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 5 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 10 April 2043 at 16:14 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 381 553 km

The Moon is 381 553 km (237 086 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 5 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 473 km (222 745 mi).

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 25 March 2043 at 21:58 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 9 April 2043 at 01:17 in ♈ Aries.

Moon after southern standstill

3 days since the last southern standstill on 1 April 2043 at 21:04 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.660° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 9 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.638° at the point of next northern standstill on 14 April 2043 at 15:23 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

23 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♈ Aries the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 4 days

In 4 days on 9 April 2043 at 19:06 in ♈ Aries 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.

Lunar calendar

Sources and credits

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