First
Quarter ♊ Gemini
First Quarter is the lunar phase on . Seen from Earth, illuminated fraction of the Moon surface is 45% and growing larger. The 7 days young Moon is in ♊ Gemini.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 12 March 2011 at 23:45 UTC.
Sunday Sun
Monday Mon
Tuesday Tue
Wednesday Wed
Thursday Thu
Friday Fri
Saturday Sat
Moon rises at noon and sets at midnight. It is visible high in the southern sky in early evening.
Moon is passing about ∠16° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector.
Lunar disc appears visually 4.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1847" and ∠1931".
Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2011 after 7 days on 19 March 2011 at 18:10.
There is medium ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at very acute angle, so their combined tidal force is moderate.
The Moon is 7 days young. Earth's natural satellite is moving through the first part of current synodic month. This is lunation 138 of Meeus index or 1091 from Brown series.
The length of the lunation is 29 days, 17 hours and 46 minutes. It is 1 hour and 28 minutes longer than the next lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to decreasing with the 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 5 hours and 2 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 1 minute shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
At the beginning of the lunation cycle the true anomaly is ∠167°. At the beginning of next synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠190.9°.
6 days after point of apogee on 6 March 2011 at 07:50 in ♈ Aries. 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 19 March 2011 at 19:09 in ♍ Virgo.
The Moon is 388 167 km (241 196 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 7 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 356 578 km (221 567 mi).
13 days after ascending node on 26 February 2011 at 20:19 in ♐ Sagittarius. The Moon is located north of the ecliptic over the following day, until the lunar orbit crosses from North to South in descending node on 13 March 2011 at 11:55 in ♊ Gemini.
13 days since the beginning of current draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius, the Moon is navigating from the first to the middle part of the cycle.
At 17:06 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠23.825°. Over the next 12 days the lunar orbit is going to extend southward to face maximum declination of ∠-23.716° at the point of next standstill in ♐ Sagittarius on 25 March 2011 at 05:02.
In 7 days on 19 March 2011 at 18:10 in ♍ Virgo 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.