First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 53% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 7 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 14 June 2024 at 05:18 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 leaving the last ∠3° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♎ Libra later.
Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2024 after 7 days on 22 June 2024 at 01:08.
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 6.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1889".
The Moon is 7 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 302 of Meeus index or 1255 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 20 minutes and it is 1 hour and 56 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 24 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 45 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 ∠60.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠93.2°.
Moon is at apogee at 13:36 about 12 days since last perigee on 2 June 2024 at 07:23 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 12 days until point of next perigee on 27 June 2024 at 11:45 in ♓ Pisces.
This apogee Moon is 404 078 km (251 082 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's closest apogee of 2024. It is 1 330 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 27 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.
12 days after ascending node on 2 June 2024 at 03:08 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 15 June 2024 at 20:17 in ♎ Libra.
6 days since the last northern standstill on 7 June 2024 at 16:40 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.365° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠-28.345° at the point of next southern standstill on 22 June 2024 at 02:41 in ♑ Capricorn.
12 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♈ Aries the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.
In 7 days on 22 June 2024 at 01:08 in ♑ Capricorn 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