First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 56% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 16 January 2016 at 23:26 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 ∠4° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2016 after 6 days on 24 January 2016 at 01:46.
There is medium ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at very acute angle, so their combined tidal force is moderate.
Lunar disc appears visually 0.9% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1968" and ∠1950".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 198 of Meeus index or 1151 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 8 minutes and it is 1 hour and 52 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 24 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 39 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 ∠292.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠319.8°.
2 days since point of perigee on 15 January 2016 at 02:10 in ♓ Pisces the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 12 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 30 January 2016 at 09:10 in ♎ Libra.
The Moon is 364 176 km (226 288 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 12 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 553 km (251 378 mi).
2 days after descending node on 14 January 2016 at 15:48 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 27 January 2016 at 23:58 in ♍ Virgo.
8 days since the last southern standstill on 8 January 2016 at 17:56 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-18.420° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠18.375° at the point of next northern standstill on 21 January 2016 at 16:41 in ♊ Gemini.
16 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♍ Virgo the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 6 days on 24 January 2016 at 01:46 in ♌ Leo 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