Waxing
Gibbous ♑ Capricorn
First Quarter is the lunar phase on . Seen from Earth, illuminated fraction of the Moon surface is 58% and growing larger. The 8 days young Moon is in ♐ Sagittarius.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 4 September 2011 at 17:39 UTC.
Tuesday Tue
Wednesday Wed
Thursday Thu
Friday Fri
Saturday Sat
Sunday Sun
Monday Mon
Moon rises at noon and sets at midnight. It is visible high in the southern sky in early evening.
Moon is passing about ∠22° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.
Lunar disc appears visually 0.6% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1915" and ∠1903".
Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2011 after 6 days on 12 September 2011 at 09:27.
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.
The Moon is 8 days young. Earth's natural satellite is moving through the first part of current synodic month. This is lunation 144 of Meeus index or 1097 from Brown series.
The length of the lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 5 minutes. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2011. It is 42 minutes shorter 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 4 hours and 39 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 30 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
At the beginning of the lunation cycle the true anomaly is ∠333.4°. At the beginning of next synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠350.1°.
5 days after point of perigee on 30 August 2011 at 17:35 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 9 days, until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 15 September 2011 at 06:23 in ♈ Aries.
The Moon is 374 236 km (232 539 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 9 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 068 km (252 319 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♐ Sagittarius at 07:36 crossing the ecliptic from South to North to meet descending node 14 days later on 19 September 2011 at 19:38 in ♊ Gemini.
At 07:36 the Moon completes the previous draconic month and enters the new one.
At 05:01 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-23.047°. Over the next 14 days the lunar orbit is going to extend northward to face maximum declination of ∠22.890° at the point of next standstill in ♊ Gemini on 19 September 2011 at 20:05.
In 6 days on 12 September 2011 at 09:27 in ♓ Pisces 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.