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 6% 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 passing about ∠21° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

5 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 5 days on 5 January 2051 at 04:29.

Wolf Moon after 16 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2051 after 16 days on 26 January 2051 at 21:20.

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 ∠1856"

Lunar disc appears visually 5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1856" and ∠1951".

Lunation 630 / 1583

The Moon is 27 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 630 of Meeus index or 1583 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.57 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 40 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 56 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 7 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠282.8°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠282.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠313.4°.

Moon before perigee

6 days since point of apogee on 4 January 2051 at 00:04 in ♎ Libra 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 15 January 2051 at 18:23 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 386 273 km

The Moon is 386 273 km (240 019 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 5 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 365 918 km (227 371 mi).

Moon after ascending node

3 days after ascending node on 7 January 2051 at 05:43 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 9 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 20 January 2051 at 03:36 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon at southern standstill

At 12:25 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-19.761°. This is the year's southernmost lunar standstill of 2051. Over the upcoming 12 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠19.697° at the point of next northern standstill in ♊ Gemini on 23 January 2051 at 08:46.

Draconic month

3 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 2 days

In 2 days on 12 January 2051 at 18:58 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