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 34% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 23 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 ♎ Libra

Moon is passing about ∠22° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 1 day on 22 December 2062 at 23:40.

Wolf Moon after 21 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2063 after 21 days on 14 January 2063 at 19:11.

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 ∠1895"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.9% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1895" and ∠1951".

Lunation 778 / 1731

The Moon is 23 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 778 of Meeus index or 1731 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.75 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 17 hours and 56 minutes and it is 1 hour and 30 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. 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 5 hours and 12 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 51 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠123°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠123° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠154.3°.

Moon before perigee

18 days since point of apogee on 5 December 2062 at 19:32 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 26 December 2062 at 08:56 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 378 178 km

The Moon is 378 178 km (234 989 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next day until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 356 616 km (221 591 mi).

Moon after descending node

2 days after descending node on 21 December 2062 at 21:32 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 11 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 5 January 2063 at 05:33 in ♓ Pisces.

Moon before southern standstill

7 days since the last northern standstill on 16 December 2062 at 13:49 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.313° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠-28.306° at the point of next southern standstill on 29 December 2062 at 18:12 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

15 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♓ Pisces the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 30 December 2062 at 16:57 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