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

First Quarter in Aquarius

First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 55% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.

* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 9 November 2005 at 01:57 UTC.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises at noon and sets at midnight. It is visible high in the southern sky in early evening.

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 ♒ Aquarius

Moon is passing about ∠23° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.

Beaver Moon after 6 days

Next Full Moon is the Beaver Moon of November 2005 after 6 days on 16 November 2005 at 00:58.

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 ∠1973"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.8% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1973" and ∠1938".

Lunation 72 / 1025

The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 72 of Meeus index or 1025 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.57 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 36 minutes and it is 1 hour and 25 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 52 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 11 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠273.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠273.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠306.3°.

Moon before perigee

14 days since point of apogee on 26 October 2005 at 09:34 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 10 November 2005 at 00:15 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 363 303 km

The Moon is 363 303 km (225 746 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next day until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 370 014 km (229 916 mi).

Moon before ascending node

9 days after descending node on 31 October 2005 at 00:32 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 13 November 2005 at 02:02 in ♈ Aries.

Moon after southern standstill

3 days since the last southern standstill on 5 November 2005 at 22:03 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.529° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 9 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.471° at the point of next northern standstill on 18 November 2005 at 23:39 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

23 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♈ Aries the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 16 November 2005 at 00:58 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is going to be in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Earth-Moon 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