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

Last Quarter in Cancer

Last Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 44% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 22 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Last Quarter phase is on 20 September 2057 at 20:25 UTC.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises at midnight and sets at noon. It is visible to the south in the morning.

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 ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing about ∠6° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

Hunter Moon after 21 days

Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2057 after 21 days on 12 October 2057 at 15:01.

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 7.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1912".

Lunation 713 / 1666

The Moon is 22 days old and navigating through the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 713 of Meeus index or 1666 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.5 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 6 minutes and it is 47 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 38 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 31 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠255.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠255.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠291.1°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 02:28 about 12 days since last perigee on 8 September 2057 at 19:57 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 12 days until point of next perigee on 3 October 2057 at 19:39 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Distance to Moon 404 133 km

This apogee Moon is 404 133 km (251 117 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's closest apogee of 2057. It is 1 275 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 82 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon after ascending node

1 day after ascending node on 20 September 2057 at 21:22 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 12 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 4 October 2057 at 10:59 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon at northern standstill

At 22:51 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠24.051°. Over the upcoming 13 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt southward to face maximum declination of ∠-24.184° at the point of next southern standstill in ♑ Capricorn on 5 October 2057 at 10:40.

Draconic month

1 day since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 7 days

In 7 days on 28 September 2057 at 16:00 in ♍ Virgo 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