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 13 December 2071 at 22:57 UTC.
The moon rises at midnight and sets at noon. It is visible to the south in the morning.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is leaving the last ∠1° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♎ Libra later.
Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2072 after 22 days on 5 January 2072 at 18:13.
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 0.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1939" and ∠1949".
The Moon is 22 days old and navigating through the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 889 of Meeus index or 1842 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 47 minutes and it is 2 hours and 1 minute 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 3 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours 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 ∠102.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠138.1°.
5 days since point of perigee on 9 December 2071 at 10:47 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 10 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 25 December 2071 at 10:25 in ♒ Aquarius.
The Moon is 369 748 km (229 751 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 10 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 839 km (252 177 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♍ Virgo at 01:42 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next descending node later on 28 December 2071 at 08:59 in ♓ Pisces.
6 days since the last northern standstill on 8 December 2071 at 10:00 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.456° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.491° at the point of next southern standstill on 21 December 2071 at 16:34 in ♐ Sagittarius.
At 01:42 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 6 days on 21 December 2071 at 11:47 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