First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 50% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 7 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 24 February 2026 at 12:28 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 ∠6° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2026 after 6 days on 3 March 2026 at 11:38.
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 1.8% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1973" and ∠1938".
The Moon is 7 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 323 of Meeus index or 1276 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 22 minutes and it is 2 hours and 54 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 38 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 25 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 ∠276.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠307.9°.
Moon is at perigee at 23:18 about 14 days since last apogee on 10 February 2026 at 16:52 in ♏ Scorpio the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 14 days until point of next apogee on 10 March 2026 at 13:43 in ♐ Sagittarius.
This perigee Moon is 370 132 km (229 989 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's farthest perigee of 2026. It is 7 624 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 224 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.
6 days after ascending node on 18 February 2026 at 06:19 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 3 March 2026 at 04:35 in ♍ Virgo.
11 days since the last southern standstill on 12 February 2026 at 12:56 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.406° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠28.428° at the point of next northern standstill on 25 February 2026 at 23:23 in ♊ Gemini.
6 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♓ Pisces the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.
In 6 days on 3 March 2026 at 11:38 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
