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

Waning Crescent in Virgo

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 39% 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 ♍ Virgo

Moon is leaving the last ∠1° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♎ Libra later.

1 day after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 1 day on 6 December 2050 at 06:27.

Cold Moon after 20 days

Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2050 after 20 days on 28 December 2050 at 05:15.

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 9.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1948".

Lunation 629 / 1582

The Moon is 23 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 629 of Meeus index or 1582 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.65 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 37 minutes and it is 1 hour and 57 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 53 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 10 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠245°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠245° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠282.8°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 02:39 about 11 days since last perigee on 25 November 2050 at 05:46 in ♈ Aries 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 20 December 2050 at 16:49 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 404 411 km

This apogee Moon is 404 411 km (251 289 mi) away from Earth. It is 997 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 2 298 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 26 November 2050 at 21:02 in ♉ Taurus 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 11 December 2050 at 00:42 in ♏ Scorpio.

Moon before southern standstill

7 days since the last northern standstill on 29 November 2050 at 15:05 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠19.809° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠-19.822° at the point of next southern standstill on 14 December 2050 at 02:00 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

23 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.

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 14 December 2050 at 05:18 in ♐ Sagittarius 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