First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 61% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 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 ∠20° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2026 after 5 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 1.7% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1971" and ∠1938".
The Moon is 8 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°.
1 day since point of perigee on 24 February 2026 at 23:18 in ♊ Gemini 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 10 March 2026 at 13:43 in ♐ Sagittarius.
The Moon is 363 728 km (226 010 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 13 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 385 km (251 273 mi).
7 days after ascending node on 18 February 2026 at 06:19 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 5 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 3 March 2026 at 04:35 in ♍ Virgo.
At 23:23 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠28.428°. This is the year's northernmost lunar standstill of 2026. Over the upcoming 14 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt southward to face maximum declination of ∠-28.416° at the point of next southern standstill in ♐ Sagittarius on 11 March 2026 at 21:12.
7 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 5 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