First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 64% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 9 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 8 July 2011 at 06:29 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 first ∠3° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Buck Moon of July 2011 after 5 days on 15 July 2011 at 06:40.
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 4.1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1966" and ∠1887".
The Moon is 9 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 142 of Meeus index or 1095 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 46 minutes and it is 1 hour and 22 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to decrease with the lunar orbit 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 2 hours and 58 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 11 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 ∠283.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠312.1°.
1 day since point of perigee on 7 July 2011 at 14:04 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 12 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 21 July 2011 at 22:46 in ♈ Aries.
The Moon is 364 592 km (226 547 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 12 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 358 km (251 256 mi).
9 days after descending node on 30 June 2011 at 04:14 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 13 July 2011 at 02:27 in ♐ Sagittarius.
9 days since the last northern standstill on 29 June 2011 at 17:46 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠23.399° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠-23.383° at the point of next southern standstill on 12 July 2011 at 16:51 in ♐ Sagittarius.
23 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 5 days on 15 July 2011 at 06:40 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.
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