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

First Quarter in Virgo

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 3 June 2006 at 23:06 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 ♍ Virgo

Moon is passing about ∠20° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

Strawberry Moon after 7 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2006 after 7 days on 11 June 2006 at 18:03.

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 ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1891".

Lunation 79 / 1032

The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 79 of Meeus index or 1032 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.44 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 40 minutes and it is 1 hour and 46 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increase with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at apogee (∠180°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 4 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 5 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠64.2°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠64.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠97.5°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 01:41 about 12 days since last perigee on 22 May 2006 at 15:29 in ♓ Pisces the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 12 days until point of next perigee on 16 June 2006 at 17:07 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 404 080 km

This apogee Moon is 404 080 km (251 084 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's closest apogee of 2006. It is 1 328 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 29 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon before descending node

12 days after ascending node on 22 May 2006 at 18:00 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 5 June 2006 at 12:10 in ♎ Libra.

Moon after northern standstill

6 days since the last northern standstill on 29 May 2006 at 01:13 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.490° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠-28.452° at the point of next southern standstill on 12 June 2006 at 10:30 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

12 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♓ Pisces the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 7 days

In 7 days on 11 June 2006 at 18:03 in ♐ Sagittarius 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