Stargazers in China snapped photos of the dazzling D-shaped moon rising into the night sky on Tuesday – the brightest and largest first quarter moon of 2026.

At 8:28 p.m. Beijing Time, the "half-hidden" moon reached its perigee – its closest point to Earth – at a distance of about 370,000 kilometers, shining like a giant capital letter "D" and casting a brilliant glow.

The relative positions of the sun, Earth and moon constantly change, so the illuminated portion of the moon that we see from Earth also keeps changing, said Wang Kechao, director of science popularization at the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The first quarter moon occurs when the sun, Earth and moon form a right angle, with the moon located to the east of the sun. Its illuminated western half creates a D-shaped half-moon in the sky.

The moon's orbit around the Earth is elliptical, Wang explained, which causes a significant variation in the distance between the two bodies, from over 400,000 kilometers at its farthest (apogee) to less than 360,000 kilometers at its closest (perigee). When the first quarter moon occurs near perigee, it appears larger and brighter than at other points in its orbit.

This year will see 12 first quarter moons and 13 last quarter moons.