First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 54% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 12 July 2016 at 00:52 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 leaving the last ∠4° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♏ Scorpio later.
Next Full Moon is the Buck Moon of July 2016 after 7 days on 19 July 2016 at 22:57.
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 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 204 of Meeus index or 1157 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 44 minutes and it is 2 hours and 35 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 3 hours and 1 minute shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 9 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 ∠48.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠77.9°.
11 days since point of perigee on 1 July 2016 at 06:45 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 day until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 13 July 2016 at 05:24 in ♏ Scorpio.
The Moon is 405 150 km (251 749 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next day until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 272 km (251 203 mi).
3 days after ascending node on 9 July 2016 at 01:41 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 23 July 2016 at 07:49 in ♓ Pisces.
8 days since the last northern standstill on 3 July 2016 at 20:06 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.598° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.569° at the point of next southern standstill on 18 July 2016 at 03:41 in ♑ Capricorn.
3 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♍ Virgo the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.
In 7 days on 19 July 2016 at 22:57 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