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

Waning Crescent in Capricorn

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 23% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 24 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 ♑ Capricorn

Moon is leaving the last ∠1° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♒ Aquarius later.

3 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 3 days on 12 March 2053 at 10:21.

Pink Moon after 18 days

Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2053 after 18 days on 3 April 2053 at 06:22.

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 ∠1782"

Lunar disc appears visually 7.9% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1782" and ∠1929".

Lunation 657 / 1610

The Moon is 24 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 657 of Meeus index or 1610 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.61 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 40 minutes and it is 3 hours and 3 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 1 hour and 56 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 7 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠251.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠251.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠288°.

Moon after apogee

2 days since point of apogee on 12 March 2053 at 21:51 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 10 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 25 March 2053 at 21:13 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 402 241 km

The Moon is 402 241 km (249 941 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 10 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 369 681 km (229 709 mi).

Moon before descending node

9 days after ascending node on 5 March 2053 at 12:51 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 19 March 2053 at 23:33 in ♓ Pisces.

Moon after southern standstill

2 days since the last southern standstill on 13 March 2053 at 04:30 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-18.150° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠18.163° at the point of next northern standstill on 26 March 2053 at 19:19 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

9 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♍ Virgo the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 4 days

In 4 days on 20 March 2053 at 07:11 in ♈ Aries 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