First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 54% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 24 April 2026 at 02:32 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 ∠9° of ♌ Leo tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2026 after 7 days on 1 May 2026 at 17:23.
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 1.1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1929" and ∠1907".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 325 of Meeus index or 1278 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 9 minutes and it is 1 hour and 16 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 4 hours and 35 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 34 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 ∠330.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠347.5°.
5 days since point of perigee on 19 April 2026 at 06:57 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 10 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 4 May 2026 at 22:30 in ♐ Sagittarius.
The Moon is 371 494 km (230 836 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 10 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 843 km (252 179 mi).
10 days after ascending node on 13 April 2026 at 23:43 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 26 April 2026 at 14:36 in ♍ Virgo.
3 days since the last northern standstill on 21 April 2026 at 11:12 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.210° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠-28.109° at the point of next southern standstill on 5 May 2026 at 11:35 in ♐ Sagittarius.
10 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 7 days on 1 May 2026 at 17:23 in ♏ Scorpio 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