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 21 August 2053 at 04:27 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 first ∠2° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2053 after 7 days on 29 August 2053 at 07:53.
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 5.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1795" and ∠1897".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 663 of Meeus index or 1616 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 55 minutes and it is 2 hours and 23 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 3 hours and 49 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 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 ∠23.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠43.5°.
8 days since point of perigee on 12 August 2053 at 14:58 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 3 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 24 August 2053 at 18:27 in ♑ Capricorn.
The Moon is 399 322 km (248 127 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 3 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 238 km (251 803 mi).
5 days after ascending node on 15 August 2053 at 17:54 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 8 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 30 August 2053 at 03:39 in ♓ Pisces.
10 days since the last northern standstill on 10 August 2053 at 19:35 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.377° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.341° at the point of next southern standstill on 24 August 2053 at 02:41 in ♑ Capricorn.
5 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♍ Virgo the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.
In 7 days on 29 August 2053 at 07:53 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