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Live lunar conditions

Is tonight a Moon night?

A good Moon night. The best window is 02:00–04:00; cloud cover looks cooperative.

London· United KingdomDefault locationTuesday, 3 November 2026 · 17:51 · London

Tonight's verdict

A good Moon night

Weather-adjusted
70/100
Viewing score 70 out of 100, weather-adjusted, Night viewing.

Good

Best window 02:00–04:00 · 2 hrs · Good (70/100)

Look E · 10° above the horizon · 2 hrs

Phase

Waning Crescent

Illumination

30%

Next moonrise

Tomorrow 01:14

Next moonset

Tomorrow 14:31

View tonight's outlookHow the score works

Open-Meteo hourly forecast for 18:00 local · cached up to 20 min

Current moon
Phase-correct

Waning Crescent · 30% lit

Altitude -26° · Azimuth 331° · 379,134 km

Northern-hemisphere orientation · NASA LRO surface

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

02:00–04:00

2 hrs · look E · 10° altitude · 0% mean cloud

Wed 4 Nov · local time in London

NightSee it on the timeline

Viewing score

Cloud-weighted, per hour

Weather
70/100
Viewing score 70 out of 100, weather-adjusted, Night viewing.

Good

Mostly clear during 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

02:00–04:00

2 hrs · look E · 10° altitude

Starts Wed 4 Nov 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

Overcast

98%

Cloud cover · 0% chance of precipitation

11°C nowValid 18:00 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 4 Nov · 02:00Moon 6°Cloud 0%Score 67 (Good)Night
0°30°60°90°BEST WINDOWNOW · 17:5118:0021:0000:0003:0006:0009:0012:0015:0018:0018:00 · Moon -27° · Cloud 98% · Score 019:00 · Moon -30° · Cloud 80% · Score 020:00 · Moon -30° · Cloud 93% · Score 021:00 · Moon -28° · Cloud 78% · Score 022:00 · Moon -24° · Cloud 100% · Score 023:00 · Moon -18° · Cloud 63% · Score 000:00 · Moon -11° · Cloud 95% · Score 001:00 · Moon -2° · Cloud 49% · Score 002:00 · Moon 6° · Cloud 0% · Score 6703:00 · Moon 15° · Cloud 0% · Score 7304:00 · Moon 23° · Cloud 72% · Score 4705:00 · Moon 31° · Cloud 71% · Score 5306:00 · Moon 37° · Cloud 66% · Score 4507:00 · Moon 42° · Cloud 99% · Score 2808:00 · Moon 43° · Cloud 90% · Score 3309:00 · Moon 41° · Cloud 27% · Score 5510:00 · Moon 37° · Cloud 64% · Score 4011:00 · Moon 30° · Cloud 94% · Score 2212:00 · Moon 22° · Cloud 86% · Score 2013:00 · Moon 13° · Cloud 48% · Score 3114:00 · Moon 4° · Cloud 62% · Score 1815:00 · Moon -5° · Cloud 60% · Score 016:00 · Moon -13° · Cloud 21% · Score 017:00 · Moon -22° · Cloud 79% · Score 018:00 · Moon -29° · Cloud 88% · Score 0
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
Tue 3 Nov 18:00-27 degrees98%0%0 out of 100Night
Tue 3 Nov 19:00-30 degrees80%0%0 out of 100Night
Tue 3 Nov 20:00-30 degrees93%3%0 out of 100Night
Tue 3 Nov 21:00-28 degrees78%6%0 out of 100Night
Tue 3 Nov 22:00-24 degrees100%5%0 out of 100Night
Tue 3 Nov 23:00-18 degrees63%4%0 out of 100Night
Wed 4 Nov 00:00-11 degrees95%2%0 out of 100Night
Wed 4 Nov 01:00-2 degrees49%1%0 out of 100Night
Wed 4 Nov 02:006 degrees0%0%67 out of 100Night
Wed 4 Nov 03:0015 degrees0%0%73 out of 100Night
Wed 4 Nov 04:0023 degrees72%0%47 out of 100Night
Wed 4 Nov 05:0031 degrees71%0%53 out of 100Night
Wed 4 Nov 06:0037 degrees66%0%45 out of 100Night
Wed 4 Nov 07:0042 degrees99%0%28 out of 100Daylight
Wed 4 Nov 08:0043 degrees90%0%33 out of 100Daylight
Wed 4 Nov 09:0041 degrees27%0%55 out of 100Daylight
Wed 4 Nov 10:0037 degrees64%0%40 out of 100Daylight
Wed 4 Nov 11:0030 degrees94%0%22 out of 100Daylight
Wed 4 Nov 12:0022 degrees86%0%20 out of 100Daylight
Wed 4 Nov 13:0013 degrees48%0%31 out of 100Daylight
Wed 4 Nov 14:004 degrees62%0%18 out of 100Daylight
Wed 4 Nov 15:00-5 degrees60%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Wed 4 Nov 16:00-13 degrees21%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Wed 4 Nov 17:00-22 degrees79%0%0 out of 100Twilight
Wed 4 Nov 18:00-29 degrees88%0%0 out of 100Night

Why this recommendation

  • Waning Crescent at 30% illumination. The terminator gives the strongest crater shadows for the next few nights.
  • The Moon climbs to about 43° around 08:00.
  • Next moonrise: Wed 4 Nov at 01:14.
  • Forecast cloud cover averages 0% during the best window, with a 0% 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

9

Nov

New Moon

07:02 local · Mon 9 Nov

Not visibleMoon at -5° altitude

New Moon occurs at 07:02 local time in London on 9 November. The Moon passes near the Sun in the sky, so its Earth-facing side is unlit. Dark skies make this a good period for deep-sky observing.

Event details Not visible — lost in the Sun's glare

Discover the Moon

Daily featured lunar feature

LRO surface
PlatoCRATER · NASA / LRO SURFACE

Plato

Crater

51.6°N · 9.3°W · 101 km

A dark, lava-flooded crater on the northern edge of Mare Imbrium. Its smooth floor contrasts with the rugged lunar Alps nearby.

Best phase

First quarter, near the terminator

Explore the Moon IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature

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. The Explore map, feature detail and live Moon disc use the public-domain NASA LRO near-side mosaic. Markers and graticule are MoonScan overlays.

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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