The Moon's phases
The Moon has no light of its own: half of it is always lit by the Sun, and its phase is how much of that lit half faces the Earth. That depends on the angle between the Sun and the Moon as seen from here. When they are together, the lit side faces away and the Moon is new; when they are opposite, the whole face we see is lit and the Moon is full. One cycle, from new moon to new moon, takes 29.5 days on average, anywhere from about 29.3 to 29.8 days.
- New Moon: the Moon between the Earth and the Sun. It rises and sets with the Sun, so it is lost in the Sun's glare.
- Waxing crescent: a thin, growing sliver, seen in the west in the evening after sunset.
- First quarter: half the face lit, a week after new moon. It is up in the afternoon and evening.
- Waxing gibbous: more than half lit and growing, bright in the evening sky.
- Full Moon: the Moon opposite the Sun, the whole face lit. It rises around sunset and shines through the night.
- Waning gibbous: shrinking after full moon, rising later each evening.
- Last quarter: half the face lit again, now the other half. It rises around the middle of the night and is still up in the morning.
- Waning crescent: a thin sliver in the east before sunrise, shrinking toward the next new moon.
Waxing means growing toward full; waning means shrinking toward new. This page calls the Moon new, first quarter, full or last quarter within 12 hours of the exact moment, and a crescent or gibbous Moon in between. The birthday moon phase calculator instead gives each of the eight names to a whole eighth of the cycle, the way astrologers read a birth moon. The percentage is how much of the face we see is lit: it climbs from 0 at new moon to 100 at full moon and falls back again.
Moonrise and moonset
Choose Tonight for the part of the evening and following morning when the Moon is above the horizon while the Sun is below it. The phase and illumination are shown at sunset, with that time and date beside the Moon. A moonrise after midnight belongs to the following calendar date, which appears with its time. Choose another date to check that night; changing towns keeps the chosen date.
At polar latitudes, the Sun or Moon may stay above or below the horizon throughout the period. The result says so and uses noon to the following noon as its boundary, with the phase at 9 PM when there is no sunset. These are horizon calculations, not a guarantee that you will see the Moon: clouds, terrain and sunlight also matter. The US Naval Observatory explains the rise/set convention, including why a Moon above the horizon can still be hard to see.
The Moon rises in the east and sets in the west like the Sun, but it moves east against the stars by about 13° a day, so each day it rises about 50 minutes later than the day before. That gap is far from constant: in New York in 2026 it ranges from 21 to 81 minutes, depending on the angle the Moon's path makes with the horizon, and the farther from the equator, the wider the range. Because of the delay, about once a month a calendar day passes with no moonrise at all, and another with no moonset.
The phase and the rising time are linked. A full moon, opposite the Sun, rises as the Sun sets: in New York every full moon from 2024 to 2030 rises within an hour of sunset. A new moon rises and sets with the Sun, and the quarters sit in between, which is why a first quarter Moon is often up in daylight in the afternoon.
The card also gives the moment the Moon is highest in the sky, as it crosses the meridian, and where it is in your sky right now: how high above the horizon, and in which direction. Far enough north or south, the Moon can stay above the horizon all day, or below it, and the card says so. To find the planets up tonight as well, with the direction to face for each, see planets visible tonight.
The Moon seen from the southern hemisphere
The phase is the same everywhere at the same moment, but south of the equator the Moon is seen the other way up. A waxing Moon, lit on the right from Europe or North America, is lit on the left from Australia, South Africa or Argentina, and a waning Moon the other way round. When you pick a town in the southern hemisphere, the drawings on this page turn to match.
How far away the Moon is
The Moon's orbit is an ellipse, so its distance changes through each orbit, between about 356,400 and 406,700 km (221,400 to 252,700 miles) from 1900 to 2100. The card gives the distance at the moment and says when the Moon is near perigee, the closest point of its orbit, or apogee, the farthest. A full moon at its closest looks about 14% wider than one at its farthest; the full moon calendar marks the year's supermoons.
The Moon's phase in astrology
Astrologers read the lunar cycle as a rhythm of beginnings and endings. The new moon is the traditional time to set intentions and start things, the waxing half for building, the full moon for culmination and seeing things clearly, and the waning half for finishing, letting go and rest. The Moon's sign colors each day's mood: today's Moon sign gives it, with the time it changes. The new moon calendar and full moon calendar give every one with its sign, and the moon phase calculator shows the phase you were born under.
How it is worked out
Everything on this page is calculated in your browser with Astronomy Engine, the same engine behind every chart on this site. The phase is the Moon's angle from the Sun, seen from the center of the Earth, and the lit percentage is the share of its face lit by the Sun. Moonrise and moonset are the moments the top of the Moon's disk meets a sea-level horizon, allowing for the bending of light by the air, which is also how the US Naval Observatory times them. The times are in the town's own time zone, including past changes to its clocks.
The page first opens on the largest city in your device's time zone, because a time zone names an area rather than a town; choose your own town for its own moonrise and moonset. Nothing about your town or time zone is stored or sent anywhere.