First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 51% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 7 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 16 September 2056 at 09:50 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 ∠4° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♑ Capricorn later.
Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2056 after 7 days on 23 September 2056 at 19:34.
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 2.4% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1955" and ∠1909".
The Moon is 7 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 701 of Meeus index or 1654 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 13 minutes and it is 7 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2056. 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 31 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 38 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 ∠317.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠337.6°.
4 days since point of perigee on 12 September 2056 at 10:34 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 11 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 28 September 2056 at 07:58 in ♉ Taurus.
The Moon is 366 697 km (227 855 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 11 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 424 km (251 919 mi).
11 days after ascending node on 5 September 2056 at 11:57 in ♋ Cancer the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 18 September 2056 at 05:52 in ♑ Capricorn.
11 days since the last northern standstill on 4 September 2056 at 19:42 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠22.139° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-22.234° at the point of next southern standstill on 17 September 2056 at 16:12 in ♑ Capricorn.
11 days 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 7 days on 23 September 2056 at 19:34 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