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 22 May 2018 at 03:49 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 ∠6° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2018 after 7 days on 29 May 2018 at 14:20.
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 2.6% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1944" and ∠1895".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 227 of Meeus index or 1180 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 55 minutes and it is 50 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 4 hours and 49 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 20 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 ∠321.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠340.3°.
4 days since point of perigee on 17 May 2018 at 21:06 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 11 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 2 June 2018 at 16:34 in ♑ Capricorn.
The Moon is 368 666 km (229 078 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 11 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 316 km (251 852 mi).
1 day after ascending node on 20 May 2018 at 13:13 in ♌ Leo the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 12 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 3 June 2018 at 12:39 in ♒ Aquarius.
3 days since the last northern standstill on 18 May 2018 at 15:02 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠20.652° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 9 days to face maximum declination of ∠-20.727° at the point of next southern standstill on 1 June 2018 at 07:09 in ♑ Capricorn.
1 day since the beginning of this draconic month in ♌ Leo the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.
In 7 days on 29 May 2018 at 14:20 in ♐ Sagittarius 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