First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 47% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 7 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 21 February 2048 at 19:22 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 ∠1° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♊ Gemini later.
Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2048 after 8 days on 29 February 2048 at 14:38.
There is medium ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at very acute angle, so their combined tidal force is moderate.
Lunar disc appears visually 9.3% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1940".
The Moon is 7 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 595 of Meeus index or 1548 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 56 minutes and it is 56 minutes 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 12 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 51 minutes 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 ∠64.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠100.4°.
Moon is at apogee at 18:29 about 12 days since last perigee on 9 February 2048 at 09:12 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 12 days until point of next perigee on 5 March 2048 at 02:21 in ♏ Scorpio.
This apogee Moon is 404 268 km (251 200 mi) away from Earth. It is 1 140 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 2 441 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.
10 days after ascending node on 10 February 2048 at 12:30 in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 24 February 2048 at 12:13 in ♋ Cancer.
12 days since the last southern standstill on 9 February 2048 at 07:42 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-24.460° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠24.357° at the point of next northern standstill on 23 February 2048 at 04:06 in ♊ Gemini.
10 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.
In 8 days on 29 February 2048 at 14:38 in ♍ Virgo 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