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

First Quarter in Pisces

First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 62% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.

* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 20 November 2023 at 10:50 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 ♓ Pisces

Moon is passing about ∠13° of ♓ Pisces tropical zodiac sector.

Beaver Moon after 5 days

Next Full Moon is the Beaver Moon of November 2023 after 5 days on 27 November 2023 at 09:16.

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 ∠1972"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.5% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1972" and ∠1943".

Lunation 295 / 1248

The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 295 of Meeus index or 1248 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.59 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 5 minutes and it is 1 hour and 40 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 1 hour and 21 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 42 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠269.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠269.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠303.6°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 21:03 about 14 days since last apogee on 6 November 2023 at 21:49 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 13 days until point of next apogee on 4 December 2023 at 18:42 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 369 824 km

This perigee Moon is 369 824 km (229 798 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's farthest perigee of 2023. It is 7 316 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 532 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 11 November 2023 at 08:49 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 24 November 2023 at 11:02 in ♈ Aries.

Moon after southern standstill

4 days since the last southern standstill on 16 November 2023 at 14:45 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.238° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.191° at the point of next northern standstill on 29 November 2023 at 14:08 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

24 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 5 days

In 5 days on 27 November 2023 at 09:16 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