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 3 May 2017 at 02:47 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 about ∠18° of ♌ Leo tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2017 after 7 days on 10 May 2017 at 21:43.
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 0.2% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1907" and ∠1903".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 214 of Meeus index or 1167 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 28 minutes and it is 42 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 5 hours and 16 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 53 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 ∠340.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠356°.
5 days since point of perigee on 27 April 2017 at 16:18 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 9 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 12 May 2017 at 19:51 in ♐ Sagittarius.
The Moon is 375 777 km (233 497 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 9 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 212 km (252 408 mi).
11 days after descending node on 21 April 2017 at 22:30 in ♒ Aquarius 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 4 May 2017 at 10:42 in ♍ Virgo.
2 days since the last northern standstill on 30 April 2017 at 13:33 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠19.187° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠-19.302° at the point of next southern standstill on 14 May 2017 at 20:29 in ♑ Capricorn.
26 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 10 May 2017 at 21:43 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