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 13 September 2021 at 20:39 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 first ∠0° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2021 after 6 days on 20 September 2021 at 23:55.
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 2.9% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1964" and ∠1908".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 268 of Meeus index or 1221 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 14 minutes and it is 5 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 2 hours and 30 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 39 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 ∠297.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠323.3°.
3 days since point of perigee on 11 September 2021 at 10:05 in ♏ Scorpio the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 12 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 26 September 2021 at 21:44 in ♊ Gemini.
The Moon is 364 972 km (226 783 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 12 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 641 km (251 432 mi).
1 day after descending node on 12 September 2021 at 16:35 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 11 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 26 September 2021 at 07:33 in ♊ Gemini.
12 days since the last northern standstill on 2 September 2021 at 00:23 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠25.868° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-25.980° at the point of next southern standstill on 15 September 2021 at 03:48 in ♑ Capricorn.
15 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 20 September 2021 at 23:55 in ♓ Pisces 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