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 17 November 2026 at 11:48 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 ∠25° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Beaver Moon of November 2026 after 7 days on 24 November 2026 at 14:53.
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 7.4% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1802" and ∠1941".
The Moon is 7 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 332 of Meeus index or 1285 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 17 hours and 50 minutes and it is 1 hour and 43 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 5 hours and 6 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 57 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 ∠129.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠159.4°.
3 days since point of apogee on 13 November 2026 at 17:50 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 8 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 25 November 2026 at 20:58 in ♊ Gemini.
The Moon is 397 717 km (247 130 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 8 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 359 348 km (223 288 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♒ Aquarius at 11:49 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 12 days until Moon's next descending node later on 30 November 2026 at 03:34 in ♌ Leo.
5 days since the last southern standstill on 12 November 2026 at 09:40 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-27.697° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠27.645° at the point of next northern standstill on 26 November 2026 at 02:01 in ♊ Gemini.
At 11:49 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.
In 7 days on 24 November 2026 at 14:53 in ♉ Taurus 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