First Quarter Moon
Decisiveness · Action · Obstacles
The First Quarter Moon arrives about seven days after New Moon, marking the point where the moon has completed one quarter of its roughly 29.5-day orbit around Earth and appears exactly half-illuminated — lit on the right side as seen from the Northern Hemisphere, left in the Southern Hemisphere. Because of where it sits relative to the sun (a 90-degree angle from Earth's perspective), the First Quarter Moon rises around midday and sets around midnight, making it one of the more visible daytime Moons — you can often spot it in a blue afternoon sky, which surprises people who assume the Moon is only an evening object. It sits at the midpoint between New Moon and Full Moon, meaning it's still in the waxing half of the cycle, with illumination continuing to grow toward waxing gibbous and eventually Full Moon about seven days later. Despite the name, it isn't shaped like a quarter — the "quarter" refers to its place in the cycle's timeline, a common point of confusion covered in more detail on our quarter Moon page.
