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 11 January 2087 at 22:31 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 ∠0° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

Wolf Moon after 6 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2087 after 6 days on 18 January 2087 at 22:11.

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 1076 / 2029

The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 1076 of Meeus index or 2029 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.58 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 1 minute and it is 2 hours 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 1 hour and 15 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 47 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠275.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠275.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠308.1°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 13:20 about 14 days since last apogee on 29 December 2086 at 03:31 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 26 January 2087 at 01:01 in ♎ Libra.

Distance to Moon 370 271 km

This perigee Moon is 370 271 km (230 076 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's farthest perigee of 2087. It is 7 763 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 85 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before descending node

10 days after ascending node on 1 January 2087 at 17:04 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 14 January 2087 at 20:43 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon before northern standstill

9 days since the last southern standstill on 2 January 2087 at 20:57 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-21.607° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠21.560° at the point of next northern standstill on 15 January 2087 at 23:21 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

10 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 18 January 2087 at 22:11 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