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 13% 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 in ♈ Aries

Moon is leaving the last ∠4° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♉ Taurus later.

4 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 4 days on 25 May 2057 at 10:40.

Strawberry Moon after 18 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2057 after 18 days on 17 June 2057 at 02:18.

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 ∠1808"

Lunar disc appears visually 4.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1808" and ∠1893".

Lunation 709 / 1662

The Moon is 26 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 709 of Meeus index or 1662 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.65 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 39 minutes and it is 3 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2057. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increase with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at apogee (∠180°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 55 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 8 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠148.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠148.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠173.3°.

Moon before apogee

9 days since point of perigee on 19 May 2057 at 12:10 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 3 June 2057 at 02:13 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 396 491 km

The Moon is 396 491 km (246 368 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 4 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 459 km (252 562 mi).

Moon before ascending node

8 days after descending node on 21 May 2057 at 03:05 in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 5 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 4 June 2057 at 02:51 in ♋ Cancer.

Moon before northern standstill

7 days since the last southern standstill on 21 May 2057 at 16:36 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-23.658° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠23.700° at the point of next northern standstill on 4 June 2057 at 20:49 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

21 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 2 June 2057 at 08:11 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