Waxing
Gibbous ♈ Aries
First Quarter is the lunar phase on . Seen from Earth, illuminated fraction of the Moon surface is 59% and growing larger. The 8 days young Moon is in ♓ Pisces.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 9 December 2013 at 15:12 UTC.
Wednesday Wed
Thursday Thu
Friday Fri
Saturday Sat
Sunday Sun
Monday Mon
Tuesday Tue
Moon rises at noon and sets at midnight. It is visible high in the southern sky in early evening.
Moon is leaving the last ∠1° of ♓ Pisces tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♈ Aries later.
Lunar disc appears visually 2.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1908" and ∠1949".
Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2013 after 6 days on 17 December 2013 at 09:28.
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 172 of Meeus index or 1125 from Brown series.
The length of the lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 52 minutes. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2013. It is 28 minutes longer 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 1 hour and 52 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 17 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
At the beginning of the lunation cycle the true anomaly is ∠336.4°. At the beginning of next synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠353°.
6 days after point of perigee on 4 December 2013 at 10:15 in ♑ Capricorn. 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 19 December 2013 at 23:49 in ♋ Cancer.
The Moon is 375 770 km (233 493 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 9 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 269 km (252 444 mi).
9 days after ascending node on 30 November 2013 at 16:59 in ♏ Scorpio. The Moon is located north of the ecliptic over the following 2 days, until the lunar orbit crosses from North to South in descending node on 13 December 2013 at 10:10 in ♉ Taurus.
9 days since the beginning of current draconic month in ♏ Scorpio, the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the cycle.
6 days since the previous standstill on 3 December 2013 at 16:38 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-19.552°, the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠19.570° at the point of next northern standstill on 17 December 2013 at 01:00 in ♊ Gemini.
In 6 days on 17 December 2013 at 09:28 in ♊ Gemini 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.