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 58% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.

* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 14 December 2037 at 14:42 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 is entering ♈ Aries

Moon is passing first ∠3° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

Cold Moon after 7 days

Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2037 after 7 days on 22 December 2037 at 13:38.

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 ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 9.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1950".

Lunation 469 / 1422

The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 469 of Meeus index or 1422 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.59 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 3 minutes and it is 2 hours and 8 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 19 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 44 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠48°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠48° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠79.2°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 16:34 about 11 days since last perigee on 3 December 2037 at 21:37 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 14 days until point of next perigee on 29 December 2037 at 18:48 in ♎ Libra.

Distance to Moon 404 504 km

This apogee Moon is 404 504 km (251 347 mi) away from Earth. It is 904 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 2 205 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon after descending node

5 days after descending node on 9 December 2037 at 12:36 in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 8 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 23 December 2037 at 22:59 in ♋ Cancer.

Moon after southern standstill

6 days since the last southern standstill on 8 December 2037 at 22:32 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-22.177° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠22.193° at the point of next northern standstill on 23 December 2037 at 09:44 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

18 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♋ Cancer the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 7 days

In 7 days on 22 December 2037 at 13:38 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