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 26 September 2009 at 04:50 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 ∠7° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2009 after 7 days on 4 October 2009 at 06:10.
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 7.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1775" and ∠1914".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 120 of Meeus index or 1073 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 49 minutes and it is 2 hours and 52 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 1 hour and 55 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 14 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 ∠39.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠65.2°.
10 days since point of perigee on 16 September 2009 at 07:55 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 28 September 2009 at 03:33 in ♑ Capricorn.
The Moon is 403 770 km (250 891 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next day until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 432 km (251 302 mi).
11 days after descending node on 14 September 2009 at 20:56 in ♋ Cancer the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 28 September 2009 at 06:52 in ♑ Capricorn.
1 day since the last southern standstill on 25 September 2009 at 04:03 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-26.188° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠26.057° at the point of next northern standstill on 9 October 2009 at 09:49 in ♊ Gemini.
25 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 7 days on 4 October 2009 at 06:10 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