First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 53% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 15 September 2048 at 06:04 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 ∠3° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♑ Capricorn later.
Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2048 after 6 days on 22 September 2048 at 04:46.
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 3.3% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1973" and ∠1909".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 602 of Meeus index or 1555 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 21 minutes and it is 28 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 23 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 46 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 ∠276° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠307.5°.
Moon is at perigee at 15:06 about 14 days since last apogee on 1 September 2048 at 10:48 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 13 days until point of next apogee on 29 September 2048 at 06:20 in ♊ Gemini.
This perigee Moon is 369 916 km (229 855 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's farthest perigee of 2048. It is 7 408 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 440 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.
Moon is in ascending node in ♐ Sagittarius at 06:06 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 28 September 2048 at 18:16 in ♊ Gemini.
1 day since the last southern standstill on 14 September 2048 at 22:20 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-23.317° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠23.189° at the point of next northern standstill on 28 September 2048 at 11:46 in ♊ Gemini.
At 06:06 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 6 days on 22 September 2048 at 04:46 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