First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 56% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 18 September 2026 at 20:44 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 first ∠3° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2026 after 7 days on 26 September 2026 at 16:49.
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 7.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1910".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 330 of Meeus index or 1283 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 23 minutes and it is 2 hours and 49 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 21 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 48 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 ∠61.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠94.5°.
Moon is at apogee at 03:00 about 12 days since last perigee on 6 September 2026 at 20:26 in ♋ Cancer 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 1 October 2026 at 20:41 in ♊ Gemini.
This apogee Moon is 404 217 km (251 169 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's closest apogee of 2026. It is 1 191 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 166 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.
9 days after descending node on 9 September 2026 at 19:17 in ♌ Leo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 24 September 2026 at 02:40 in ♒ Aquarius.
1 day since the last southern standstill on 18 September 2026 at 18:54 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.065° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠27.989° at the point of next northern standstill on 2 October 2026 at 11:35 in ♊ Gemini.
22 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 7 days on 26 September 2026 at 16:49 in ♓ Pisces 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