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 23 May 2026 at 11:11 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 ∠16° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2026 after 6 days on 31 May 2026 at 08:45.
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% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1873" and ∠1894".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 326 of Meeus index or 1279 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 6 hours and 53 minutes and it is 4 minutes longer 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 5 hours and 51 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 18 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 ∠347.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠2.5°.
6 days since point of perigee on 17 May 2026 at 13:48 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 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 1 June 2026 at 04:32 in ♐ Sagittarius.
The Moon is 382 715 km (237 808 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 7 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 369 km (252 506 mi).
1 day after descending node on 23 May 2026 at 15:26 in ♌ Leo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 13 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 7 June 2026 at 06:19 in ♓ Pisces.
5 days since the last northern standstill on 18 May 2026 at 19:38 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.051° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠-27.988° at the point of next southern standstill on 1 June 2026 at 16:59 in ♐ Sagittarius.
13 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♓ Pisces the Moon is navigating from the middle to the last part of the lunar cycle.
In 6 days on 31 May 2026 at 08:45 in ♐ Sagittarius 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