Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 10% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 26 days old.
The moon rises after midnight to early morning and sets in the afternoon. It is visible in the early morning low to the east.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing about ∠24° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 4 days on 16 December 2068 at 14:11.
Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2069 after 17 days on 7 January 2069 at 13:43.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 8.2% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1797" and ∠1951".
The Moon is 26 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 852 of Meeus index or 1805 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 2 minutes and it is 2 hours and 10 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 18 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 45 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠241.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠279.4°.
3 days since point of apogee on 17 December 2068 at 15:04 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 24 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 14 January 2069 at 12:33 in ♎ Libra.
The Moon is 398 790 km (247 797 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 24 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 393 km (251 278 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♏ Scorpio at 08:54 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 12 days until Moon's next descending node later on 3 January 2069 at 11:40 in ♉ Taurus.
12 days since the last northern standstill on 9 December 2068 at 01:53 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠20.669° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-20.663° at the point of next southern standstill on 23 December 2068 at 11:18 in ♐ Sagittarius.
At 08:54 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.
In 3 days on 24 December 2068 at 13:44 in ♐ Sagittarius 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.
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