First Quarter Moon
First Quarter MoonImage credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.(large image)

First Quarter in Sagittarius

First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 61% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.

* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 1 September 2052 at 07:10 UTC.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises at noon and sets at midnight. It is visible high in the southern sky in early evening.

Moon phases on nearby dates

Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.

Upcoming main moon phases

Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.

Moon phase and lunation details

Moon in ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing about ∠24° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

Harvest Moon after 6 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2052 after 6 days on 9 September 2052 at 00:15.

Neap tide

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.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1773"

Lunar disc appears visually 7.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1773" and ∠1902".

Lunation 651 / 1604

The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 651 of Meeus index or 1604 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.52 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 26 minutes and it is 3 hours and 5 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°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 18 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 51 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠69.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠69.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠104.4°.

Moon after apogee

1 day since point of apogee on 1 September 2052 at 00:01 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 10 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 13 September 2052 at 06:22 in ♉ Taurus.

Distance to Moon 404 373 km

The Moon is 404 373 km (251 266 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 10 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 368 182 km (228 778 mi).

Moon after ascending node

6 days after ascending node on 27 August 2052 at 00:15 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 7 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 10 September 2052 at 07:41 in ♈ Aries.

Moon at southern standstill

At 21:23 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-18.203°. Over the upcoming 13 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠18.163° at the point of next northern standstill in ♊ Gemini on 16 September 2052 at 04:17.

Draconic month

6 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♎ Libra the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 9 September 2052 at 00:15 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.

Lunar calendar

Sources and credits

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