First
Quarter ♈ Aries
First Quarter is the lunar phase on . Seen from Earth, illuminated fraction of the Moon surface is 47% and growing larger. The 7 days young Moon is in ♓ Pisces.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 19 December 2023 at 18:39 UTC.
Wednesday Wed
Thursday Thu
Friday Fri
Saturday Sat
Sunday Sun
Monday Mon
Tuesday Tue
Moon rises at noon and sets at midnight. It is visible high in the southern sky in early evening.
Moon is passing about ∠24° of ♓ Pisces tropical zodiac sector.
Lunar disc appears visually 1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1970" and ∠1950".
Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2023 after 7 days on 27 December 2023 at 00:33.
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.
The Moon is 7 days young. Earth's natural satellite is moving through the first part of current synodic month. This is lunation 296 of Meeus index or 1249 from Brown series.
The length of the lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 25 minutes. It is 1 hour and 23 minutes longer than the next lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to decreasing with the 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 19 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 50 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
At the beginning of the lunation cycle the true anomaly is ∠303.6°. At the beginning of next synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠328°.
2 days after point of perigee on 16 December 2023 at 18:53 in ♒ Aquarius. The lunar orbit is getting widen, while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 13 days, until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 1 January 2024 at 15:28 in ♍ Virgo.
The Moon is 363 942 km (226 143 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 13 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 911 km (251 600 mi).
10 days after descending node on 8 December 2023 at 15:24 in ♎ Libra. The Moon is located south of the ecliptic over the following 2 days, until the lunar orbit crosses from South to North in ascending node on 21 December 2023 at 13:54 in ♈ Aries.
25 days since the beginning of current draconic month in ♈ Aries, the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the cycle.
5 days since the previous standstill on 13 December 2023 at 21:51 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.151°, the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.131° at the point of next northern standstill on 26 December 2023 at 21:50 in ♊ Gemini.
In 7 days on 27 December 2023 at 00:33 in ♋ Cancer 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.