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Live lunar conditions

Is tonight a Moon night?

Only a brief, low-quality opening. No two-hour window clears 50/100. Best single hour: 15:00 · Fair (49/100).

London· United KingdomDefault locationThursday, 12 November 2026 · 12:58 · London

Tonight's verdict

Only a brief, low-quality opening

Weather-adjusted
49/100
Viewing score 49 out of 100, weather-adjusted, Daylight viewing.

Fair

No two-hour window clears 50/100. Best single hour: 15:00 · Fair (49/100)

Phase

Waxing Crescent

Illumination

10%

Next moonrise

Tomorrow 11:43

Next moonset

Today 17:41

View tonight's outlookHow the score works

Open-Meteo hourly forecast for 13:00 local · cached up to 20 min

Current moon
Phase-correct

Waxing Crescent · 10% lit

Altitude 8° · Azimuth 162° · 404,895 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

Viewing score

Cloud-weighted, per hour

Weather
49/100
Viewing score 49 out of 100, weather-adjusted, Daylight viewing.

Fair

Score reflects cloud, altitude and darkness.

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

No qualifying window

No two-hour window clears 50/100. Best single hour: 15:00 · Fair (49/100)

A window requires at least two consecutive hours with a score of 50 or better and the Moon above the horizon.

Weather snapshot

Hourly forecast for the selected location

Open-Meteo

Mostly clear

14%

Cloud cover · 0% chance of precipitation

8°C nowValid 13:00 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

Thu 12 Nov · 13:00Moon 8°Cloud 14%Score 42 (Poor)Daylight
0°30°60°90°NOW · 12:5813:0016:0019:0022:0001:0004:0007:0010:0013:0013:00 · Moon 8° · Cloud 14% · Score 4214:00 · Moon 10° · Cloud 40% · Score 3215:00 · Moon 10° · Cloud 0% · Score 4916:00 · Moon 7° · Cloud 0% · Score 4817:00 · Moon 3° · Cloud 0% · Score 4618:00 · Moon -2° · Cloud 0% · Score 019:00 · Moon -9° · Cloud 0% · Score 020:00 · Moon -17° · Cloud 1% · Score 021:00 · Moon -26° · Cloud 0% · Score 022:00 · Moon -34° · Cloud 0% · Score 023:00 · Moon -43° · Cloud 0% · Score 000:00 · Moon -52° · Cloud 0% · Score 001:00 · Moon -59° · Cloud 0% · Score 002:00 · Moon -65° · Cloud 0% · Score 003:00 · Moon -66° · Cloud 0% · Score 004:00 · Moon -62° · Cloud 0% · Score 005:00 · Moon -56° · Cloud 0% · Score 006:00 · Moon -48° · Cloud 0% · Score 007:00 · Moon -39° · Cloud 0% · Score 008:00 · Moon -30° · Cloud 0% · Score 009:00 · Moon -21° · Cloud 0% · Score 010:00 · Moon -13° · Cloud 0% · Score 011:00 · Moon -5° · Cloud 0% · Score 012:00 · Moon 1° · Cloud 0% · Score 4513:00 · Moon 6° · Cloud 0% · Score 47
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
Thu 12 Nov 13:008 degrees14%0%42 out of 100Daylight
Thu 12 Nov 14:0010 degrees40%0%32 out of 100Daylight
Thu 12 Nov 15:0010 degrees0%0%49 out of 100Daylight
Thu 12 Nov 16:007 degrees0%0%48 out of 100Daylight
Thu 12 Nov 17:003 degrees0%0%46 out of 100Night
Thu 12 Nov 18:00-2 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Night
Thu 12 Nov 19:00-9 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Night
Thu 12 Nov 20:00-17 degrees1%0%0 out of 100Night
Thu 12 Nov 21:00-26 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Night
Thu 12 Nov 22:00-34 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Night
Thu 12 Nov 23:00-43 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Night
Fri 13 Nov 00:00-52 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Night
Fri 13 Nov 01:00-59 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Night
Fri 13 Nov 02:00-65 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Night
Fri 13 Nov 03:00-66 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Night
Fri 13 Nov 04:00-62 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Night
Fri 13 Nov 05:00-56 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Night
Fri 13 Nov 06:00-48 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Night
Fri 13 Nov 07:00-39 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Twilight
Fri 13 Nov 08:00-30 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Fri 13 Nov 09:00-21 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Fri 13 Nov 10:00-13 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Fri 13 Nov 11:00-5 degrees0%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Fri 13 Nov 12:001 degrees0%0%45 out of 100Daylight
Fri 13 Nov 13:006 degrees0%0%47 out of 100Daylight

Why this recommendation

  • Waxing Crescent at 10% illumination. Only a slim crescent is lit; look soon after sunset or before sunrise, close to the horizon.
  • The Moon climbs to about 10° around 14:00.
  • Next moonrise: Fri 13 Nov at 11:43.
Limitations & methodShow
  • The Moon is above the horizon in daylight. The daylight score is capped because sky contrast is much lower.
  • The Moon stays low, so buildings, trees and haze may block the view.
  • 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

Tue

17

Nov

First Quarter Moon

11:48 local · Tue 17 Nov

Below horizonMoon at -13° altitude

First Quarter Moon occurs at 11:48 local time in London on 17 November. Half of the visible disc is lit, and the terminator cuts across the middle. Long shadows make craters along the dividing line stand out.

Event details Below the horizon at the exact moment — look near moonrise or moonset

Discover the Moon

Daily featured lunar feature

LRO surface
Mare ImbriumMARE · NASA / LRO SURFACE

Mare Imbrium

Lunar sea

32.8°N · 15.6°W

A vast impact basin flooded by lava, ringed by the lunar Alps and Apennines. Its smooth interior and surrounding mountain arcs are visible in small telescopes.

Best phase

First quarter, as the terminator crosses the basin

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.

Lunar calendar →
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