First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 57% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 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 ∠21° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2030 after 6 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 3.5% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1972" and ∠1903".
The Moon is 8 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°.
1 day since point of perigee on 4 September 2030 at 17:06 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 13 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 18 September 2030 at 18:09 in ♊ Gemini.
The Moon is 363 557 km (225 904 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 13 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 258 km (251 194 mi).
1 day after ascending node on 4 September 2030 at 20:52 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 12 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 18 September 2030 at 10:12 in ♊ Gemini.
At 08:00 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-22.341°. Over the upcoming 13 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠22.208° at the point of next northern standstill in ♊ Gemini on 19 September 2030 at 02:24.
1 day since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.
In 6 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
