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

Waning Crescent in Sagittarius

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 5% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 27 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 ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is leaving the last ∠4° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♑ Capricorn later.

4 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 4 days on 8 January 2048 at 18:49.

Wolf Moon after 17 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2048 after 17 days on 31 January 2048 at 00:14.

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 ∠1960"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.5% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1960" and ∠1951".

Lunation 593 / 1546

The Moon is 27 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 593 of Meeus index or 1546 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.5 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 54 minutes and it is 1 hour and 5 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°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 50 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 19 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠18.2°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠18.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠37.7°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 03:53 about 16 days since last apogee on 28 December 2047 at 02:49 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 11 days until point of next apogee on 24 January 2048 at 21:24 in ♉ Taurus.

Distance to Moon 363 708 km

This perigee Moon is 363 708 km (225 998 mi) away from Earth. It is 1 200 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 6 648 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

12 days after descending node on 31 December 2047 at 23:38 in ♋ Cancer 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 14 January 2048 at 05:27 in ♑ Capricorn.

Moon at southern standstill

At 00:07 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-24.561°. This is the year's southernmost lunar standstill of 2048. Over the upcoming 13 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠24.528° at the point of next northern standstill in ♊ Gemini on 26 January 2048 at 19:32.

Draconic month

26 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 1 day

In 1 day on 15 January 2048 at 11:32 in ♑ Capricorn 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