First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 57% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 19 February 2021 at 18:47 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 ∠10° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2021 after 6 days on 27 February 2021 at 08:17.
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 8.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1778" and ∠1940".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 261 of Meeus index or 1214 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 15 minutes and it is 55 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 2 hours and 31 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 32 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 ∠87° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠124.3°.
2 days since point of apogee on 18 February 2021 at 10:22 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 9 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 2 March 2021 at 05:19 in ♎ Libra.
The Moon is 403 113 km (250 483 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 9 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 365 422 km (227 063 mi).
13 days after descending node on 7 February 2021 at 00:29 in ♐ Sagittarius 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 21 February 2021 at 01:44 in ♊ Gemini.
11 days since the last southern standstill on 8 February 2021 at 15:34 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-24.953° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠25.056° at the point of next northern standstill on 23 February 2021 at 00:12 in ♋ Cancer.
26 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 6 days on 27 February 2021 at 08:17 in ♍ Virgo 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