First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 53% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 18 May 2013 at 04:35 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 ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2013 after 6 days on 25 May 2013 at 04:25.
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% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1824" and ∠1897".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 165 of Meeus index or 1118 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 28 minutes and it is 10 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2013. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increase with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at apogee (∠180°).
The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 44 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 19 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠143.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠168.8°.
4 days since point of apogee on 13 May 2013 at 13:31 in ♊ Gemini 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 26 May 2013 at 01:45 in ♐ Sagittarius.
The Moon is 392 947 km (244 166 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 7 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 375 km (222 684 mi).
8 days after descending node on 9 May 2013 at 19:12 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 5 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 24 May 2013 at 00:40 in ♏ Scorpio.
5 days since the last northern standstill on 12 May 2013 at 12:30 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠20.170° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠-20.182° at the point of next southern standstill on 26 May 2013 at 04:47 in ♐ Sagittarius.
21 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 6 days on 25 May 2013 at 04:25 in ♐ Sagittarius 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