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 25% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 24 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 leaving the last ∠3° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♏ Scorpio later.

2 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 2 days on 16 December 2087 at 20:11.

Wolf Moon after 19 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2088 after 19 days on 8 January 2088 at 09:37.

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 ∠1786"

Lunar disc appears visually 8.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1786" and ∠1950".

Lunation 1087 / 2040

The Moon is 24 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 1087 of Meeus index or 2040 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.8 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 19 hours and 19 minutes and it is 1 hour and 23 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2087. 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 6 hours and 35 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 28 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠183°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠183° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠208.8°.

Moon before apogee

10 days since point of perigee on 9 December 2087 at 08:50 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 2 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 22 December 2087 at 02:07 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 401 387 km

The Moon is 401 387 km (249 410 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 2 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 133 km (252 359 mi).

Moon before ascending node

11 days after descending node on 7 December 2087 at 19:31 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 21 December 2087 at 00:25 in ♏ Scorpio.

Moon before southern standstill

9 days since the last northern standstill on 10 December 2087 at 01:14 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠20.072° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠-20.078° at the point of next southern standstill on 23 December 2087 at 22:55 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

25 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 5 days

In 5 days on 25 December 2087 at 01:42 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