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

First Quarter in Libra

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 3 July 2006 at 16:37 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 ♎ Libra

Moon is passing about ∠21° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector.

Buck Moon after 6 days

Next Full Moon is the Buck Moon of July 2006 after 6 days on 11 July 2006 at 03:02.

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 ∠1784"

Lunar disc appears visually 5.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1784" and ∠1887".

Lunation 80 / 1033

The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 80 of Meeus index or 1033 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.52 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 26 minutes and it is 2 hours and 13 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 18 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 51 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠97.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠97.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠131.2°.

Moon after apogee

2 days since point of apogee on 1 July 2006 at 20:12 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 9 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 13 July 2006 at 17:35 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 401 666 km

The Moon is 401 666 km (249 584 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 9 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 364 287 km (226 357 mi).

Moon after descending node

1 day after descending node on 2 July 2006 at 14:19 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 11 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 15 July 2006 at 20:25 in ♓ Pisces.

Moon before southern standstill

9 days since the last northern standstill on 25 June 2006 at 08:40 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.444° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠-28.477° at the point of next southern standstill on 9 July 2006 at 18:49 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

15 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♓ Pisces the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 11 July 2006 at 03:02 in ♑ Capricorn 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