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

Waning Crescent in Aries

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 22% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 25 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 ♈ Aries

Moon is passing about ∠21° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 2 days on 3 June 2048 at 12:05.

Strawberry Moon after 19 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2048 after 19 days on 26 June 2048 at 02:08.

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 ∠1807"

Lunar disc appears visually 4.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1807" and ∠1891".

Lunation 598 / 1551

The Moon is 25 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 598 of Meeus index or 1551 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.66 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 52 minutes and it is 38 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2048. 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 8 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 55 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠163°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠163° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠186.1°.

Moon before apogee

9 days since point of perigee on 27 May 2048 at 23:56 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 10 June 2048 at 20:20 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 396 588 km

The Moon is 396 588 km (246 428 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 4 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 480 km (252 575 mi).

Moon before descending node

8 days after ascending node on 29 May 2048 at 03:20 in ♐ Sagittarius 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 12 June 2048 at 01:40 in ♊ Gemini.

Moon before northern standstill

8 days since the last southern standstill on 28 May 2048 at 12:36 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-23.749° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠23.745° at the point of next northern standstill on 11 June 2048 at 06:28 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 5 days

In 5 days on 11 June 2048 at 12:50 in ♊ Gemini 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