First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 58% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 15 August 2040 at 18:36 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 ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2040 after 5 days on 22 August 2040 at 09:09.
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 2% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1933" and ∠1895".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 502 of Meeus index or 1455 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 47 minutes and it is 35 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 2 hours and 3 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours 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 ∠199° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠226.5°.
10 days since point of apogee on 5 August 2040 at 23:43 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 21 August 2040 at 03:58 in ♒ Aquarius.
The Moon is 370 763 km (230 381 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 4 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 359 359 km (223 295 mi).
Moon is in descending node in ♏ Scorpio at 05:30 crossing the ecliptic from North to South. Lunar position remains south of if for the upcoming 12 days until Moon's next ascending node later on 28 August 2040 at 19:18 in ♉ Taurus.
11 days since the last northern standstill on 4 August 2040 at 21:26 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠26.211° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠-26.313° at the point of next southern standstill on 18 August 2040 at 23:35 in ♑ Capricorn.
14 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♉ Taurus the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 5 days on 22 August 2040 at 09:09 in ♒ Aquarius 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