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

Waning Crescent in Taurus

Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 40% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 23 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 ♉ Taurus

Moon is leaving the last ∠2° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♊ Gemini later.

1 day after Last Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 1 day on 7 August 2091 at 10:44.

Sturgeon Moon after 20 days

Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2091 after 20 days on 29 August 2091 at 00:39.

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 ∠1779"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.2% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1779" and ∠1893".

Lunation 1132 / 2085

The Moon is 23 days old and navigating from the second to the final part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 1132 of Meeus index or 2085 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.42 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 6 minutes and it is 53 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 38 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 31 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠280.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠280.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠310.2°.

Moon after apogee

2 days since point of apogee on 6 August 2091 at 07:42 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 9 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 18 August 2091 at 06:08 in ♎ Libra.

Distance to Moon 402 860 km

The Moon is 402 860 km (250 326 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 9 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 366 147 km (227 513 mi).

Moon after descending node

7 days after descending node on 1 August 2091 at 10:40 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 7 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 15 August 2091 at 17:38 in ♌ Leo.

Moon before northern standstill

11 days since the last southern standstill on 28 July 2091 at 05:06 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-18.921° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠18.890° at the point of next northern standstill on 11 August 2091 at 15:21 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

20 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♍ Virgo the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 15 August 2091 at 00:22 in ♌ Leo 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