First Quarter Moon
First Quarter MoonImage credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.(large image)

First Quarter in Leo

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 13 April 2027 at 22:57 UTC.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises at noon and sets at midnight. It is visible high in the southern sky in early evening.

Moon phases on nearby dates

Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.

Upcoming main moon phases

Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.

Moon phase and lunation details

Moon is entering ♌ Leo

Moon is passing first ∠1° of ♌ Leo tropical zodiac sector.

Pink Moon after 6 days

Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2027 after 6 days on 20 April 2027 at 22:27.

Neap tide

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.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1972"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1972" and ∠1913".

Lunation 337 / 1290

The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 337 of Meeus index or 1290 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.46 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 7 minutes and it is 2 hours and 25 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°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 37 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 32 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠278.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠278.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠308.6°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 00:41 about 13 days since last apogee on 31 March 2027 at 01:33 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 13 days until point of next apogee on 27 April 2027 at 21:21 in ♑ Capricorn.

Distance to Moon 370 001 km

This perigee Moon is 370 001 km (229 908 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's farthest perigee of 2027. It is 7 493 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 355 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before descending node

12 days after ascending node on 2 April 2027 at 10:17 in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 15 April 2027 at 16:31 in ♌ Leo.

Moon after northern standstill

2 days since the last northern standstill on 11 April 2027 at 19:29 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠27.412° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠-27.312° at the point of next southern standstill on 25 April 2027 at 01:45 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

12 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 20 April 2027 at 22:27 in ♎ Libra 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.

Lunar calendar

Sources and credits

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