The Waning Crescent

A shrinking sliver, lit on the opposite edge from the evening crescent, with earthshine filling in the rest of the disc.

Where to look: Rises in the small hours and hangs low in the east before dawn. There are about three mornings of it before the Moon is lost in the Sun's glare entirely.

The least-seen phase of the eight and arguably the most beautiful, because the whole dark disc glows with light that has been to Earth and back. It is the old moon at the end of the month, and the last thing the sky does before starting the cycle again.

Commonly muddled: Photographs of 'the crescent moon' are usually the evening one. This is its mirror image, four weeks apart and eighteen hours earlier in the day.