First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 53% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 6 November 2008 at 04:04 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 ∠18° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Beaver Moon of November 2008 after 6 days on 13 November 2008 at 06:17.
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 6.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1812" and ∠1936".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 109 of Meeus index or 1062 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 17 hours and 41 minutes and it is 1 hour and 47 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 57 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 6 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠133.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠161.9°.
4 days since point of apogee on 2 November 2008 at 04:55 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 14 November 2008 at 09:59 in ♊ Gemini.
The Moon is 395 651 km (245 846 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 7 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 973 km (223 055 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♒ Aquarius at 03:34 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 12 days until Moon's next descending node later on 18 November 2008 at 18:37 in ♌ Leo.
4 days since the last southern standstill on 1 November 2008 at 20:56 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-27.155° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠27.088° at the point of next northern standstill on 15 November 2008 at 08:19 in ♊ Gemini.
At 03:34 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.
In 6 days on 13 November 2008 at 06:17 in ♉ Taurus 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