Moon Phase and Lunar Day Today

It is shown as the large number together with the start and end of the current lunar day. Note that lunar days change at MOONRISE, not at midnight, so a single calendar day often contains two of them. The first lunar day is a special case: it begins at the exact moment of new moon and ends at the first moonrise, so it can be very short.

Because nearly every printed and online lunar calendar computes one table for one city and publishes it for an entire country. Moonrise depends on latitude and longitude, so such a table drifts by a full day across a large country. We compute from moonrise at your own location.

The "Upcoming phases" block lists the next four phase changes with exact date, time and a countdown. Times are shown in the time zone of the selected location.

It is a full moon near perigee, the closest point of the orbit. The disc is roughly 7 % larger and about 15 % brighter than average. The opposite case, a full moon near apogee, is called a micromoon. The tool applies the label only when it is actually true.

The Moon always keeps one face toward us, but it rocks slightly — up to 8° in longitude and almost as much in latitude. As a result, about 59 % of its surface becomes visible from Earth over a month: a strip of the far side peeks around one limb, then the other. A flat phase picture cannot show that; a globe can.

Most sites draw the Moon with its horns to the side, which is the textbook view. In the real sky the tilt depends on your latitude, the time of day and the altitude of the Moon: near the equator the crescent often lies like a boat, while at northern latitudes it stands almost upright. The "As in the sky" mode accounts for this; "As on a map" gives the familiar textbook view.

Sun and Moon positions come from astronomy-engine, which is validated against JPL ephemerides. Our own check against published data agrees within seconds: for example, the peak of the 8 April 2024 solar eclipse matches the published value to within 3 seconds.