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Live lunar conditions

Is tonight a Moon night?

A workable Moon night. The best window is 23:00–02:00; cloud is the main uncertainty.

London· United KingdomDefault locationWednesday, 21 October 2026 · 22:23 · London

Tonight's verdict

A workable Moon night

Weather-adjusted
57/100
Viewing score 57 out of 100, weather-adjusted, Night viewing.

Fair

Best window 23:00–02:00 · 3 hrs · Fair (57/100)

Look SSW · 20° above the horizon · 3 hrs

Phase

Waxing Gibbous

Illumination

80%

Next moonrise

Tomorrow 16:21

Next moonset

Tomorrow 02:49

View tonight's outlookHow the score works

Open-Meteo hourly forecast for 22:00 local · cached up to 20 min

Current moon
Phase-correct

Waxing Gibbous · 80% lit

Altitude 27° · Azimuth 197° · 390,078 km

Northern-hemisphere orientation · surface detail schematic

Tonight's outlook

The next 24 hours, without the guesswork

A deterministic viewing score, a recommended window, and the weather that could change the plan. All times are local to London.

Read the scoring method

Best viewing window

23:00–02:00

3 hrs · look SSW · 20° altitude · 43% mean cloud

Wed 21 Oct · local time in London

NightSee it on the timeline

Viewing score

Cloud-weighted, per hour

Weather
57/100
Viewing score 57 out of 100, weather-adjusted, Night viewing.

Fair

Some cloud around the best window

Not a scientific measurement. The index favours a Moon that is easy to see, not necessarily the sharpest surface detail.

Best time to look

Best contiguous window in the next 24 hours

Night

23:00–02:00

3 hrs · look SSW · 20° altitude

Starts Wed 21 Oct local time. The window is the longest qualifying run at or above 50/100, selected by mean score.

Weather snapshot

Hourly forecast for the selected location

Open-Meteo

Mostly clear

23%

Cloud cover · 0% chance of precipitation

9°C nowValid 22:00 local

Moon altitude & cloud cover

Next 24 hours · local time · cloud bars rise from the horizon

Hover or focus an hour for details

Moon altitude Cloud cover Daylight / twilight Now

Weather: Open-Meteo

Wed 21 Oct · 23:00Moon 25°Cloud 45%Score 62 (Fair)Night
0°30°60°90°BEST WINDOWNOW · 22:2323:0002:0005:0008:0011:0014:0017:0020:0023:0023:00 · Moon 25° · Cloud 45% · Score 6200:00 · Moon 20° · Cloud 54% · Score 5301:00 · Moon 14° · Cloud 30% · Score 5602:00 · Moon 6° · Cloud 100% · Score 2303:00 · Moon -2° · Cloud 100% · Score 004:00 · Moon -11° · Cloud 95% · Score 005:00 · Moon -19° · Cloud 28% · Score 006:00 · Moon -28° · Cloud 98% · Score 007:00 · Moon -35° · Cloud 6% · Score 008:00 · Moon -41° · Cloud 0% · Score 009:00 · Moon -45° · Cloud 2% · Score 010:00 · Moon -45° · Cloud 27% · Score 011:00 · Moon -43° · Cloud 9% · Score 012:00 · Moon -37° · Cloud 30% · Score 013:00 · Moon -30° · Cloud 2% · Score 014:00 · Moon -22° · Cloud 10% · Score 015:00 · Moon -13° · Cloud 37% · Score 016:00 · Moon -3° · Cloud 26% · Score 017:00 · Moon 5° · Cloud 11% · Score 4218:00 · Moon 14° · Cloud 0% · Score 5419:00 · Moon 21° · Cloud 100% · Score 2320:00 · Moon 28° · Cloud 100% · Score 4021:00 · Moon 32° · Cloud 100% · Score 4422:00 · Moon 34° · Cloud 100% · Score 4523:00 · Moon 33° · Cloud 100% · Score 45
Moon altitude is in degrees above the horizon. Cloud-cover bars run from the bottom of the chart. The highlighted band is the recommended contiguous viewing window; the gold line marks the current local time. Times are local to the selected location.
Hourly Moon viewing forecast
Local timeMoon altitudeCloud coverPrecipitation chanceScoreLight
Wed 21 Oct 23:0025 degrees45%5%62 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 00:0020 degrees54%13%53 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 01:0014 degrees30%27%56 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 02:006 degrees100%53%23 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 03:00-2 degrees100%85%0 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 04:00-11 degrees95%100%0 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 05:00-19 degrees28%85%0 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 06:00-28 degrees98%53%0 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 07:00-35 degrees6%27%0 out of 100Twilight
Thu 22 Oct 08:00-41 degrees0%14%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 09:00-45 degrees2%5%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 10:00-45 degrees27%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 11:00-43 degrees9%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 12:00-37 degrees30%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 13:00-30 degrees2%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 14:00-22 degrees10%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 15:00-13 degrees37%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 16:00-3 degrees26%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 17:005 degrees11%0%42 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 18:0014 degrees0%0%54 out of 100Twilight
Thu 22 Oct 19:0021 degrees100%0%23 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 20:0028 degrees100%12%40 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 21:0032 degrees100%29%44 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 22:0034 degrees100%47%45 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 23:0033 degrees100%66%45 out of 100Night

Why this recommendation

  • Waxing Gibbous at 80% illumination. The terminator gives the strongest crater shadows for the next few nights.
  • The Moon climbs to about 34° around 22:00.
  • Next moonrise: Thu 22 Oct at 16:21.
  • Forecast cloud cover averages 43% during the best window, with a 15% chance of precipitation.
Limitations & methodShow
  • The viewing score is a convenience index, not a scientific measurement of sky quality.
  • The Moon disc on this page is phase-correct but its orientation and surface detail are schematic; libration and parallactic angle are not modelled.
Full methodology →

Look ahead & look closer

The next event. The next detail.

Phase events are calculated from the same ephemeris as the live view. Lunar features are a curated, phase-independent map — never presented as tonight's Moon.

Two ways to go deeper

Next lunar event

Calculated phase · local to London

All events

Mon

26

Oct

Full Moon

04:12 local · Mon 26 Oct

Above horizonMoon at 25° altitude

Full Moon occurs at 04:12 local time in London on 26 October. The Moon is opposite the Sun and fully illuminated. It is easy to see all night, but surface contrast is lowest because sunlight is nearly head-on.

Event details Above the horizon (25°) at the exact moment

Discover the Moon

Daily featured lunar feature

Map detail
Apollo 17 landing siteLANDING-SITE · SCHEMATIC MAP DETAIL

Apollo 17 landing site

Landing site

20.2°N · 30.8°E

The Taurus–Littrow valley, the last crewed lunar landing, in December 1972. The site lies near the eastern edge of Mare Serenitatis.

Best phase

First quarter, near the terminator

Explore the Moon NASA Apollo mission documentation

Near-Earth neighbour

Earth has a tiny quasi-moon: 2025 PN7

Verified object
SUN2025 PN7EARTHMoonIllustrative orbit · not to scale · not a live position

2025 PN7 is a small near-Earth asteroid in a 1:1 resonance with Earth. It orbits the Sun on roughly the same schedule as our planet, so from Earth it appears to loop nearby. It is not a comet, not a meteor, and not a moon of the Moon.

  • Discovered by Pan-STARRS 1 and announced by the Minor Planet Center on 29 August 2025.
  • Estimated size is roughly 14–30 metres across; it is far too faint for the unaided eye.
  • Dynamical models classify it as a quasi-satellite. It will shift into a horseshoe orbit in about 120 years.
  • Its spectrum is consistent with a primitive B-type asteroid, not lunar ejecta.
Track its current orbit Source: ESA NEO Coordination Centre and Minor Planet Center

Sources & further reading

Images, references and discovery

Official archives for lunar imagery, surface data and current small-body orbits.

External links open the source directly. MoonScan's own lunar map and feature art are generated schematics, not photographs.

The Moon, by the numbers

Six facts worth keeping

Figure sources: NASA and ESA

384,400 km

Mean distance

Light takes about 1.3 seconds to cross the gap between Earth and the Moon.

3,474.8 km

Diameter

Roughly one quarter of Earth's diameter — the Moon is a small world, not a tiny dot.

1.62 m/s²

Surface gravity

About one sixth of Earth's gravity, which is why Apollo astronauts could bound across the surface.

29.5 days

Phase cycle

The time from one new Moon to the next. The Moon's actual orbit around Earth takes 27.3 days.

3.8 cm/year

Drifting away

Lunar laser ranging shows the Moon receding from Earth by roughly the width of two fingers per year.

12

Moonwalkers

Apollo 11 through Apollo 17 put twelve people on the surface between 1969 and 1972.

Elsewhere on Earth

See the same night from another city.

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