First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 49% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 7 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 24 August 2012 at 13:54 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 ∠1° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2012 after 7 days on 31 August 2012 at 13:58.
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 3.9% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1973" and ∠1898".
The Moon is 7 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 156 of Meeus index or 1109 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 16 minutes and it is 24 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 28 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 41 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 ∠283.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠312.9°.
1 day since point of perigee on 23 August 2012 at 19:39 in ♏ Scorpio the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 13 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 7 September 2012 at 06:00 in ♊ Gemini.
The Moon is 363 323 km (225 758 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 13 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 296 km (251 218 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♐ Sagittarius at 11:38 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 September 2012 at 02:08 in ♉ Taurus.
12 days since the last northern standstill on 12 August 2012 at 09:47 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠21.492° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-21.379° at the point of next southern standstill on 25 August 2012 at 18:40 in ♐ Sagittarius.
At 11:38 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 7 days on 31 August 2012 at 13:58 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.
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