First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 56% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 20 January 2021 at 21:02 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 about ∠8° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2021 after 7 days on 28 January 2021 at 19:16.
There is medium ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at very acute angle, so their combined tidal force is moderate.
Lunar disc appears visually 9.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1950".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 260 of Meeus index or 1213 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 5 minutes and it is 1 hour and 10 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 1 hour and 21 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 42 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 ∠53.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠87°.
Moon is at apogee at 13:11 about 11 days since last perigee on 9 January 2021 at 15:39 in ♏ Scorpio the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 13 days until point of next perigee on 3 February 2021 at 19:33 in ♎ Libra.
This apogee Moon is 404 361 km (251 258 mi) away from Earth. It is 1 047 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 2 348 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.
10 days after descending node on 10 January 2021 at 20:15 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 24 January 2021 at 21:47 in ♊ Gemini.
9 days since the last southern standstill on 12 January 2021 at 08:18 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-24.870° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠24.898° at the point of next northern standstill on 26 January 2021 at 15:39 in ♋ Cancer.
23 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 7 days on 28 January 2021 at 19:16 in ♌ Leo 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