First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 45% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 7 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 4 September 2030 at 21:55 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 ∠7° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2030 after 7 days on 11 September 2030 at 21:18.
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 3.6% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1973" and ∠1903".
The Moon is 7 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 379 of Meeus index or 1332 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 47 minutes and it is 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 57 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 12 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 ∠279.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠310.2°.
Moon is at perigee at 17:06 about 13 days since last apogee on 21 August 2030 at 22:49 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 14 days until point of next apogee on 18 September 2030 at 18:09 in ♊ Gemini.
This perigee Moon is 369 884 km (229 835 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's farthest perigee of 2030. It is 7 376 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 472 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.
Moon is in ascending node in ♐ Sagittarius at 20:52 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next descending node later on 18 September 2030 at 10:12 in ♊ Gemini.
12 days since the last northern standstill on 22 August 2030 at 18:22 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠22.465° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-22.341° at the point of next southern standstill on 5 September 2030 at 08:00 in ♐ Sagittarius.
At 20:52 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 11 September 2030 at 21:18 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