First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 55% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 23 April 2056 at 01:33 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 ∠9° of ♌ Leo tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2056 after 6 days on 29 April 2056 at 18:31.
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 1.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1879" and ∠1908".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 696 of Meeus index or 1649 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 16 minutes and it is 1 hour and 18 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 3 hours and 32 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 31 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 ∠172.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠196°.
7 days since point of apogee on 15 April 2056 at 19:35 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 6 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 29 April 2056 at 14:48 in ♏ Scorpio.
The Moon is 381 517 km (237 064 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 6 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 356 811 km (221 712 mi).
1 day after ascending node on 22 April 2056 at 10:02 in ♋ Cancer the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 11 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 4 May 2056 at 20:18 in ♑ Capricorn.
2 days since the last northern standstill on 21 April 2056 at 07:19 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠21.717° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠-21.812° at the point of next southern standstill on 3 May 2056 at 22:04 in ♑ Capricorn.
1 day since the beginning of this draconic month in ♋ Cancer the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.
In 6 days on 29 April 2056 at 18:31 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