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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: 08:00 · Poor (42/100).

London· United KingdomDefault locationWednesday, 4 November 2026 · 11:58 · London

Tonight's verdict

Only a brief, low-quality opening

Weather-adjusted
42/100
Viewing score 42 out of 100, weather-adjusted, Daylight viewing.

Poor

No two-hour window clears 50/100. Best single hour: 08:00 · Poor (42/100)

Phase

Waning Crescent

Illumination

23%

Next moonrise

Tomorrow 02:33

Next moonset

Today 14:31

View tonight's outlookHow the score works

Open-Meteo hourly forecast for 12:00 local · cached up to 20 min

Current moon
Phase-correct

Waning Crescent · 23% lit

Altitude 22° · Azimuth 246° · 381,803 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
42/100
Viewing score 42 out of 100, weather-adjusted, Daylight viewing.

Poor

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: 08:00 · Poor (42/100)

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 cloudy

67%

Cloud cover · 0% chance of precipitation

11°C nowValid 12:00 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 · 12:00Moon 22°Cloud 67%Score 28 (Poor)Daylight
0°30°60°90°NOW · 11:5812:0015:0018:0021:0000:0003:0006:0009:0012:0012:00 · Moon 22° · Cloud 67% · Score 2813:00 · Moon 13° · Cloud 93% · Score 1014:00 · Moon 4° · Cloud 63% · Score 1715:00 · Moon -5° · Cloud 44% · Score 016:00 · Moon -13° · Cloud 95% · Score 017:00 · Moon -22° · Cloud 89% · Score 018:00 · Moon -29° · Cloud 100% · Score 019:00 · Moon -34° · Cloud 99% · Score 020:00 · Moon -36° · Cloud 100% · Score 021:00 · Moon -36° · Cloud 100% · Score 022:00 · Moon -34° · Cloud 100% · Score 023:00 · Moon -29° · Cloud 100% · Score 000:00 · Moon -22° · Cloud 100% · Score 001:00 · Moon -14° · Cloud 100% · Score 002:00 · Moon -5° · Cloud 99% · Score 003:00 · Moon 3° · Cloud 95% · Score 2204:00 · Moon 12° · Cloud 99% · Score 2605:00 · Moon 20° · Cloud 98% · Score 3206:00 · Moon 27° · Cloud 100% · Score 2207:00 · Moon 33° · Cloud 98% · Score 2108:00 · Moon 36° · Cloud 58% · Score 4209:00 · Moon 37° · Cloud 81% · Score 3210:00 · Moon 34° · Cloud 65% · Score 3711:00 · Moon 29° · Cloud 71% · Score 3112:00 · Moon 23° · Cloud 76% · Score 24
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 4 Nov 12:0022 degrees67%0%28 out of 100Daylight
Wed 4 Nov 13:0013 degrees93%0%10 out of 100Daylight
Wed 4 Nov 14:004 degrees63%0%17 out of 100Daylight
Wed 4 Nov 15:00-5 degrees44%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Wed 4 Nov 16:00-13 degrees95%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Wed 4 Nov 17:00-22 degrees89%0%0 out of 100Twilight
Wed 4 Nov 18:00-29 degrees100%0%0 out of 100Night
Wed 4 Nov 19:00-34 degrees99%5%0 out of 100Night
Wed 4 Nov 20:00-36 degrees100%12%0 out of 100Night
Wed 4 Nov 21:00-36 degrees100%18%0 out of 100Night
Wed 4 Nov 22:00-34 degrees100%23%0 out of 100Night
Wed 4 Nov 23:00-29 degrees100%27%0 out of 100Night
Thu 5 Nov 00:00-22 degrees100%27%0 out of 100Night
Thu 5 Nov 01:00-14 degrees100%21%0 out of 100Night
Thu 5 Nov 02:00-5 degrees99%11%0 out of 100Night
Thu 5 Nov 03:003 degrees95%4%22 out of 100Night
Thu 5 Nov 04:0012 degrees99%2%26 out of 100Night
Thu 5 Nov 05:0020 degrees98%3%32 out of 100Night
Thu 5 Nov 06:0027 degrees100%4%22 out of 100Night
Thu 5 Nov 07:0033 degrees98%3%21 out of 100Daylight
Thu 5 Nov 08:0036 degrees58%1%42 out of 100Daylight
Thu 5 Nov 09:0037 degrees81%0%32 out of 100Daylight
Thu 5 Nov 10:0034 degrees65%0%37 out of 100Daylight
Thu 5 Nov 11:0029 degrees71%0%31 out of 100Daylight
Thu 5 Nov 12:0023 degrees76%0%24 out of 100Daylight

Why this recommendation

  • Waning Crescent at 23% illumination. Only a slim crescent is lit; look soon after sunset or before sunrise, close to the horizon.
  • The Moon climbs to about 37° around 09:00.
  • Next moonrise: Thu 5 Nov at 02:33.
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

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
GrimaldiCRATER · NASA / LRO SURFACE

Grimaldi

Crater

5.2°S · 68.6°W · 222 km

A dark-floored crater near the western limb. Libration can bring it slightly closer to the centre of the disc, making its flooded floor easier to inspect.

Best phase

Waning gibbous to last quarter

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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