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

Waning Crescent in Taurus

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 36% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 23 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 ♉ Taurus

Moon is passing about ∠10° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 1 day on 15 July 2047 at 00:09.

Sturgeon Moon after 20 days

Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2047 after 20 days on 5 August 2047 at 20:38.

Neap tide

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.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1888".

Lunation 587 / 1540

The Moon is 23 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 587 of Meeus index or 1540 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.51 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 13 minutes and it is 1 hour and 46 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 31 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 38 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠240°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠240° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠274.9°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 03:57 about 11 days since last perigee on 4 July 2047 at 04:56 in ♏ Scorpio the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 13 days until point of next perigee on 30 July 2047 at 09:01 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 404 370 km

This apogee Moon is 404 370 km (251 264 mi) away from Earth. It is 1 038 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 2 339 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon before descending node

9 days after ascending node on 7 July 2047 at 11:43 in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 5 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 21 July 2047 at 20:52 in ♋ Cancer.

Moon before northern standstill

10 days since the last southern standstill on 5 July 2047 at 15:10 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.343° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠25.339° at the point of next northern standstill on 19 July 2047 at 18:19 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

9 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 22 July 2047 at 22:49 in ♋ Cancer 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