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

Waning Crescent in Aquarius

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 22% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 25 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 ♒ Aquarius

Moon is passing first ∠3° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 3 days on 15 March 2088 at 09:29.

Pink Moon after 18 days

Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2088 after 18 days on 6 April 2088 at 00:59.

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 ∠1805"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1805" and ∠1927".

Lunation 1090 / 2043

The Moon is 25 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 1090 of Meeus index or 2043 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.54 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 51 minutes and it is 2 hours and 27 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°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 7 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 56 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠278.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠278.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠309.1°.

Moon after apogee

4 days since point of apogee on 14 March 2088 at 10:38 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 26 March 2088 at 07:42 in ♉ Taurus.

Distance to Moon 397 043 km

The Moon is 397 043 km (246 711 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 7 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 366 634 km (227 816 mi).

Moon before descending node

7 days after ascending node on 11 March 2088 at 08:26 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 25 March 2088 at 08:46 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon after southern standstill

3 days since the last southern standstill on 15 March 2088 at 00:16 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-19.517° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 9 days to face maximum declination of ∠19.444° at the point of next northern standstill on 28 March 2088 at 10:38 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 4 days

In 4 days on 23 March 2088 at 00:00 in ♈ Aries 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