Waxing
Gibbous ♒ Aquarius
First Quarter is the lunar phase on . Seen from Earth, illuminated fraction of the Moon surface is 54% and growing larger. The 8 days young Moon is in ♒ Aquarius.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 22 October 2012 at 03:32 UTC.
Tuesday Tue
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Moon rises at noon and sets at midnight. It is visible high in the southern sky in early evening.
Moon is passing first ∠4° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.
Lunar disc appears visually 0.3% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1922" and ∠1929".
Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2012 after 7 days on 29 October 2012 at 19:50.
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 158 of Meeus index or 1111 from Brown series.
The length of the lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 5 minutes. It is 29 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 2 hours and 39 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 30 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
At the beginning of the lunation cycle the true anomaly is ∠334.3°. At the beginning of next synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠351.3°.
5 days after point of perigee on 17 October 2012 at 01:02 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 10 days, until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 1 November 2012 at 15:30 in ♊ Gemini.
The Moon is 372 918 km (231 721 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 10 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 050 km (252 308 mi).
4 days after ascending node on 17 October 2012 at 18:27 in ♏ Scorpio. The Moon is located north of the ecliptic over the following 8 days, until the lunar orbit crosses from North to South in descending node on 31 October 2012 at 10:36 in ♉ Taurus.
4 days since the beginning of current draconic month in ♏ Scorpio, the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the cycle.
3 days since the previous standstill on 19 October 2012 at 06:49 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-20.964°, the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠20.920° at the point of next northern standstill on 2 November 2012 at 08:15 in ♊ Gemini.
In 7 days on 29 October 2012 at 19:50 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.