Gibbous ♑ Capricorn
First Quarter is the lunar phase on . Seen from Earth, illuminated fraction of the Moon surface is 54% and growing larger. The 8 days young Moon is in ♑ Capricorn.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 4 October 2011 at 03:15 UTC.
Moon rises at noon and sets at midnight. It is visible high in the southern sky in early evening.
Moon is passing about ∠15° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.
Lunar disc appears visually 2% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1881" and ∠1918".
Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2011 after 7 days on 12 October 2011 at 02:06.
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.
The Moon is 8 days young. Earth's natural satellite is moving through the first part of current synodic month. This is lunation 145 of Meeus index or 1098 from Brown series.
The length of the lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 47 minutes. It is 1 hour and 27 minutes shorter than the next lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increasing with the 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 57 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 12 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
At the beginning of the lunation cycle the true anomaly is ∠350.1°. At the beginning of next synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠5.3°.
6 days after point of perigee on 28 September 2011 at 01:01 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 7 days, until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 12 October 2011 at 11:43 in ♈ Aries.
The Moon is 381 057 km (236 778 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 7 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 435 km (252 547 mi).
2 days after ascending node on 2 October 2011 at 09:09 in ♐ Sagittarius. The Moon is located north of the ecliptic over the following 12 days, until the lunar orbit crosses from North to South in descending node on 16 October 2011 at 21:01 in ♊ Gemini.
2 days since the beginning of current draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius, the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the cycle.
2 days since the previous standstill on 2 October 2011 at 11:38 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-22.791°, the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠22.665° at the point of next northern standstill on 17 October 2011 at 02:06 in ♊ Gemini.
In 7 days on 12 October 2011 at 02:06 in ♈ Aries 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.