First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 60% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 15 August 2021 at 15:20 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 ∠5° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2021 after 6 days on 22 August 2021 at 12:02.
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 4% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1973" and ∠1895".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 267 of Meeus index or 1220 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 2 minutes and it is 48 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 42 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 27 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 ∠264.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠297.8°.
14 days since point of apogee on 2 August 2021 at 07:35 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 17 August 2021 at 09:23 in ♐ Sagittarius.
The Moon is 363 314 km (225 753 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next day until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 369 127 km (229 365 mi).
Moon is in descending node in ♐ Sagittarius at 16:04 crossing the ecliptic from North to South. Lunar position remains south of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next ascending node later on 30 August 2021 at 05:13 in ♊ Gemini.
10 days since the last northern standstill on 5 August 2021 at 16:46 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠25.685° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠-25.761° at the point of next southern standstill on 18 August 2021 at 22:24 in ♑ Capricorn.
13 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the middle to the last part of the lunar cycle.
In 6 days on 22 August 2021 at 12:02 in ♒ Aquarius 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