First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 45% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 7 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 17 April 2051 at 22:38 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 ∠22° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2051 after 8 days on 26 April 2051 at 02:19.
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 3.2% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1850" and ∠1911".
The Moon is 7 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 634 of Meeus index or 1587 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 30 minutes and it is 3 minutes longer 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 4 hours and 14 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 55 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 ∠6.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠23.1°.
6 days since point of perigee on 10 April 2051 at 16:35 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 6 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 23 April 2051 at 15:59 in ♎ Libra.
The Moon is 387 432 km (240 739 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 6 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 100 km (252 339 mi).
5 days after descending node on 11 April 2051 at 19:58 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 8 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 25 April 2051 at 19:39 in ♎ Libra.
2 days since the last northern standstill on 15 April 2051 at 05:12 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠19.160° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠-19.162° at the point of next southern standstill on 29 April 2051 at 20:50 in ♐ Sagittarius.
18 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♎ Libra the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 8 days on 26 April 2051 at 02:19 in ♏ Scorpio 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