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

Waning Crescent in Capricorn

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 12% 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 is entering ♑ Capricorn

Moon is passing first ∠4° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 3 days on 30 January 2073 at 12:18.

Snow Moon after 18 days

Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2073 after 18 days on 22 February 2073 at 07:26.

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 ∠1857"

Lunar disc appears visually 4.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1857" and ∠1946".

Lunation 903 / 1856

The Moon is 26 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 903 of Meeus index or 1856 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.73 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 17 hours and 30 minutes and it is 1 hour and 5 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 4 hours and 46 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 17 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠105.7°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠105.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠140.9°.

Moon before apogee

8 days since point of perigee on 25 January 2073 at 21:07 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 10 February 2073 at 19:47 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 385 884 km

The Moon is 385 884 km (239 777 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 7 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 844 km (252 180 mi).

Moon before descending node

8 days after ascending node on 25 January 2073 at 14:53 in ♌ Leo the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 8 February 2073 at 00:44 in ♓ Pisces.

Moon at southern standstill

At 17:41 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-19.012°. Over the upcoming 14 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠18.995° at the point of next northern standstill in ♋ Cancer on 18 February 2073 at 09:14.

Draconic month

8 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♌ Leo the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 7 February 2073 at 01:40 in ♒ Aquarius 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