First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 47% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 7 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 2 October 2003 at 19:09 UTC.
The moon rises at noon and sets at midnight. It is visible high in the southern sky in early evening.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing about ∠5° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2003 after 7 days on 10 October 2003 at 07:27.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 1.7% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1950" and ∠1917".
The Moon is 7 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 46 of Meeus index or 999 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 41 minutes and it is 28 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2003. 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 3 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 6 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠325.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠344°.
4 days since point of perigee on 28 September 2003 at 05:59 in ♏ Scorpio the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 11 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 14 October 2003 at 02:27 in ♊ Gemini.
The Moon is 367 606 km (228 420 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 11 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 692 km (252 085 mi).
3 days after descending node on 29 September 2003 at 10:34 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 13 October 2003 at 03:40 in ♉ Taurus.
At 17:06 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-26.963°. Over the upcoming 14 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠27.054° at the point of next northern standstill in ♋ Cancer on 17 October 2003 at 03:41.
16 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♉ Taurus the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 7 days on 10 October 2003 at 07:27 in ♈ Aries 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.
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