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

Waning Crescent in Libra

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 9% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 26 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 is entering ♎ Libra

Moon is passing first ∠4° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector.

4 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 4 days on 26 October 2051 at 12:39.

Beaver Moon after 17 days

Next Full Moon is the Beaver Moon of November 2051 after 17 days on 18 November 2051 at 05:06.

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 ∠1779"

Lunar disc appears visually 8.3% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1779" and ∠1933".

Lunation 640 / 1593

The Moon is 26 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 640 of Meeus index or 1593 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.76 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 18 hours and 12 minutes and it is 26 minutes shorter 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 5 hours and 28 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 35 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠163.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠163.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠187.8°.

Moon before apogee

11 days since point of perigee on 19 October 2051 at 22:41 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 2 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 2 November 2051 at 17:22 in ♎ Libra.

Distance to Moon 402 929 km

The Moon is 402 929 km (250 368 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 2 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 481 km (252 576 mi).

Moon before ascending node

11 days after descending node on 19 October 2051 at 14:46 in ♈ Aries 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 2 November 2051 at 03:14 in ♎ Libra.

Moon before southern standstill

7 days since the last northern standstill on 23 October 2051 at 15:33 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.671° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.703° at the point of next southern standstill on 7 November 2051 at 04:46 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

25 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♎ Libra the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 3 November 2051 at 14:59 in ♏ Scorpio 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