First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 58% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 13 May 2016 at 17:02 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 ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2016 after 7 days on 21 May 2016 at 21:15.
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 4.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1813" and ∠1898".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 202 of Meeus index or 1155 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 30 minutes and it is 31 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2016. 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 5 hours and 14 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 55 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 ∠10.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠27.6°.
8 days since point of perigee on 6 May 2016 at 04:14 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 18 May 2016 at 22:06 in ♎ Libra.
The Moon is 395 309 km (245 634 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 4 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 934 km (252 236 mi).
11 days after descending node on 3 May 2016 at 01:27 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 15 May 2016 at 20:39 in ♍ Virgo.
4 days since the last northern standstill on 9 May 2016 at 21:54 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.447° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 9 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.539° at the point of next southern standstill on 24 May 2016 at 11:16 in ♑ Capricorn.
25 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 7 days on 21 May 2016 at 21:15 in ♏ Scorpio 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