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

First Quarter in Aries

First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 56% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.

* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 6 January 2025 at 23:56 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 ♈ Aries

Moon is passing about ∠24° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

Wolf Moon after 6 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2025 after 6 days on 13 January 2025 at 22:27.

Moderate tide

There is medium ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at very acute angle, so their combined tidal force is moderate.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1973"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1973" and ∠1951".

Lunation 309 / 1262

The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 309 of Meeus index or 1262 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.59 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 9 minutes and it is 2 hours 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 25 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 38 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠272.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠272.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠305.9°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 23:34 about 14 days since last apogee on 24 December 2024 at 07:25 in ♎ Libra 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 21 January 2025 at 04:55 in ♎ Libra.

Distance to Moon 370 173 km

This perigee Moon is 370 173 km (230 015 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's farthest perigee of 2025. It is 7 665 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 183 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon after ascending node

1 day after ascending node on 5 January 2025 at 19:46 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 11 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 19 January 2025 at 01:48 in ♍ Virgo.

Moon before northern standstill

8 days since the last southern standstill on 30 December 2024 at 05:06 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.428° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.464° at the point of next northern standstill on 12 January 2025 at 04:30 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

1 day 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 6 days

In 6 days on 13 January 2025 at 22:27 in ♋ Cancer 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