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 12 August 2043 at 18:57 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 leaving the last ∠2° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♐ Sagittarius later.
Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2043 after 7 days on 20 August 2043 at 15:04.
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 6.9% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1894".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 539 of Meeus index or 1492 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 55 minutes and it is 3 hours 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 1 hour and 49 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 20 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 ∠57.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠88.7°.
Moon is at apogee at 08:32 about 12 days since last perigee on 1 August 2043 at 05:13 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 13 days until point of next perigee on 26 August 2043 at 13:38 in ♉ Taurus.
This apogee Moon is 404 190 km (251 152 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's closest apogee of 2043. It is 1 218 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 139 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.
4 days after descending node on 8 August 2043 at 16:43 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 9 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 22 August 2043 at 23:42 in ♓ Pisces.
11 days since the last northern standstill on 2 August 2043 at 03:11 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.531° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠-28.600° at the point of next southern standstill on 16 August 2043 at 03:37 in ♑ Capricorn.
17 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♓ Pisces the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 7 days on 20 August 2043 at 15:04 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