First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 47% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 7 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 12 April 2019 at 19:06 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 ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2019 after 6 days on 19 April 2019 at 11:12.
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 1.9% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1950" and ∠1914".
The Moon is 7 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 238 of Meeus index or 1191 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 55 minutes and it is 2 hours and 39 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 1 hour and 11 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 52 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 ∠228.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠263°.
11 days since point of apogee on 1 April 2019 at 00:14 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 16 April 2019 at 22:02 in ♍ Virgo.
The Moon is 367 648 km (228 446 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 4 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 364 209 km (226 309 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♋ Cancer at 18:08 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next descending node later on 25 April 2019 at 15:02 in ♑ Capricorn.
1 day since the last northern standstill on 11 April 2019 at 23:59 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠22.016° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠-22.125° at the point of next southern standstill on 24 April 2019 at 21:22 in ♑ Capricorn.
At 18:08 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.
In 6 days on 19 April 2019 at 11:12 in ♎ Libra 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