First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 50% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 7 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 24 June 2015 at 11:03 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 ∠3° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Buck Moon of July 2015 after 7 days on 2 July 2015 at 02:20.
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 6.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1769" and ∠1888".
The Moon is 7 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 191 of Meeus index or 1144 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 19 minutes and it is 2 hours and 10 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. 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 1 hour and 25 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 44 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 ∠78.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠112.8°.
1 day since point of apogee on 23 June 2015 at 17:01 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 11 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 5 July 2015 at 18:54 in ♒ Aquarius.
The Moon is 405 155 km (251 752 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 11 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 367 095 km (228 102 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♍ Virgo at 17:23 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 8 July 2015 at 00:07 in ♈ Aries.
7 days since the last northern standstill on 16 June 2015 at 19:47 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.457° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.445° at the point of next southern standstill on 1 July 2015 at 06:48 in ♐ Sagittarius.
At 17:23 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 2 July 2015 at 02:20 in ♑ Capricorn 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