First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 45% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 7 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 26 October 2009 at 00:42 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 leaving the last ∠4° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♒ Aquarius later.
Next Full Moon is the Beaver Moon of November 2009 after 8 days on 2 November 2009 at 19:14.
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 8.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1930".
The Moon is 7 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 121 of Meeus index or 1074 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 41 minutes and it is 3 hours and 7 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 57 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 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 ∠65.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠99.9°.
Moon is at apogee at 23:18 about 12 days since last perigee on 13 October 2009 at 12:28 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 12 days until point of next perigee on 7 November 2009 at 07:30 in ♋ Cancer.
This apogee Moon is 404 168 km (251 138 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's closest apogee of 2009. It is 1 240 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 117 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.
Moon is in ascending node in ♑ Capricorn at 08:52 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next descending node later on 7 November 2009 at 23:25 in ♋ Cancer.
2 days since the last southern standstill on 22 October 2009 at 12:10 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.951° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠25.856° at the point of next northern standstill on 5 November 2009 at 15:31 in ♊ Gemini.
At 08:52 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 8 days on 2 November 2009 at 19:14 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