Our Moon reaches apogee, (greatest distance from Earth), for this orbit, on Thursday January 2nd. At that time the Moon will be at a distance of 31.71 Earth diameters 251,394 miles (404,580 km) from the Earth.
On the day of the apogee Moon the 8-day old first quarter Moon rises around noon local time and sets around midnight. At around sunset the Moon will over the southern horizon.
Does our Moon actually go around the Earth as this graphic shows? From our perspective on the Earth the Moon appears to circle around the Earth. However, in reality, the Moon orbits the Sun together with the Earth*
*Click here to read my 2006 Scope on the Sky column “The Real Shape of the Moon’s Orbit”. (PDF)
Click here to go to the Qué tal in the Current Skies web site for monthly observing information, or here to go to bobs-spaces.
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Friday April 12th the 7-day old waxing gibbous Moon will be crossing the plane of the ecliptic moving north relative to the ecliptic. This is known as the ascending node, one of two intersections the Moon’s orbital path has with the ecliptic. The ecliptic is actually the Earth’s orbit and the Moon’s orbit is inclined about 6o from the ecliptic. So there are two node intersections, the 
On the day of the node crossing the 7-day old first quarter Moon rises around mid-day and sets the following day. 
This conjunction will look good through binoculars or a low-power wide-field telescope eyepiece. 
The Moon reaches perigee, (minimum distance from Earth), this month on Monday March 26th. At that time the Moon will more or less be at a distance of 28.90 Earth diameters (369,106 km or 229352 miles) from the Earth.
Our Moon reaches apogee, (greatest distance from Earth), on Wednesday September 27th. At that time the Moon will more or less be at a distance of 31.70 Earth diameters (404,308 km or 251,225 miles) from the Earth.
