Skip to content
MoonScan
Open navigation menu

Live lunar conditions

Is tonight a Moon night?

An excellent Moon night. The best window is 21:00–10:00; cloud cover looks cooperative.

London· United KingdomDefault locationThursday, 29 October 2026 · 08:47 · London

Tonight's verdict

An excellent Moon night

Weather-adjusted
82/100
Viewing score 82 out of 100, weather-adjusted, Night viewing.

Excellent

Best window 21:00–10:00 · 13 hrs · Excellent (82/100)

Look ENE · 46° above the horizon · 13 hrs

Phase

Waning Gibbous

Illumination

86%

Next moonrise

Today 18:22

Next moonset

Today 11:33

View tonight's outlookHow the score works

Open-Meteo hourly forecast for 09:00 local · cached up to 20 min

Current moon
Phase-correct

Waning Gibbous · 86% lit

Altitude 20° · Azimuth 289° · 364,632 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

21:00–10:00

13 hrs · look ENE · 46° altitude · 4% mean cloud

Thu 29 Oct · local time in London

NightSee it on the timeline

Viewing score

Cloud-weighted, per hour

Weather
82/100
Viewing score 82 out of 100, weather-adjusted, Night viewing.

Excellent

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

21:00–10:00

13 hrs · look ENE · 46° altitude

Starts Thu 29 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

Clear

0%

Cloud cover · 0% chance of precipitation

13°C nowValid 09:00 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 29 Oct · 21:00Moon 18°Cloud 18%Score 69 (Good)Night
0°30°60°90°BEST WINDOWNOW · 08:4709:0012:0015:0018:0021:0000:0003:0006:0009:0009:00 · Moon 18° · Cloud 0% · Score 5510:00 · Moon 10° · Cloud 49% · Score 2911:00 · Moon 3° · Cloud 22% · Score 3512:00 · Moon -3° · Cloud 36% · Score 013:00 · Moon -7° · Cloud 71% · Score 014:00 · Moon -10° · Cloud 70% · Score 015:00 · Moon -11° · Cloud 95% · Score 016:00 · Moon -10° · Cloud 95% · Score 017:00 · Moon -7° · Cloud 69% · Score 018:00 · Moon -2° · Cloud 27% · Score 019:00 · Moon 3° · Cloud 68% · Score 3520:00 · Moon 10° · Cloud 72% · Score 3921:00 · Moon 18° · Cloud 18% · Score 6922:00 · Moon 27° · Cloud 0% · Score 8423:00 · Moon 36° · Cloud 0% · Score 9200:00 · Moon 45° · Cloud 0% · Score 9901:00 · Moon 53° · Cloud 1% · Score 9802:00 · Moon 61° · Cloud 2% · Score 9803:00 · Moon 65° · Cloud 27% · Score 8604:00 · Moon 65° · Cloud 0% · Score 9905:00 · Moon 61° · Cloud 0% · Score 9706:00 · Moon 53° · Cloud 0% · Score 8107:00 · Moon 45° · Cloud 0% · Score 5508:00 · Moon 36° · Cloud 0% · Score 5509:00 · Moon 27° · Cloud 0% · Score 55
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 29 Oct 09:0018 degrees0%0%55 out of 100Daylight
Thu 29 Oct 10:0010 degrees49%0%29 out of 100Daylight
Thu 29 Oct 11:003 degrees22%0%35 out of 100Daylight
Thu 29 Oct 12:00-3 degrees36%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 29 Oct 13:00-7 degrees71%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 29 Oct 14:00-10 degrees70%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 29 Oct 15:00-11 degrees95%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 29 Oct 16:00-10 degrees95%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 29 Oct 17:00-7 degrees69%0%0 out of 100Twilight
Thu 29 Oct 18:00-2 degrees27%0%0 out of 100Night
Thu 29 Oct 19:003 degrees68%0%35 out of 100Night
Thu 29 Oct 20:0010 degrees72%0%39 out of 100Night
Thu 29 Oct 21:0018 degrees18%0%69 out of 100Night
Thu 29 Oct 22:0027 degrees0%0%84 out of 100Night
Thu 29 Oct 23:0036 degrees0%0%92 out of 100Night
Fri 30 Oct 00:0045 degrees0%0%99 out of 100Night
Fri 30 Oct 01:0053 degrees1%0%98 out of 100Night
Fri 30 Oct 02:0061 degrees2%0%98 out of 100Night
Fri 30 Oct 03:0065 degrees27%0%86 out of 100Night
Fri 30 Oct 04:0065 degrees0%0%99 out of 100Night
Fri 30 Oct 05:0061 degrees0%0%97 out of 100Night
Fri 30 Oct 06:0053 degrees0%0%81 out of 100Night
Fri 30 Oct 07:0045 degrees0%0%55 out of 100Daylight
Fri 30 Oct 08:0036 degrees0%0%55 out of 100Daylight
Fri 30 Oct 09:0027 degrees0%0%55 out of 100Daylight

Why this recommendation

  • Waning Gibbous at 86% illumination. A bright Moon is easy to find, but head-on sunlight reduces surface contrast.
  • The Moon climbs to about 65° around 04:00.
  • Next moonrise: Thu 29 Oct at 18:22.
  • Forecast cloud cover averages 4% 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

Sun

1

Nov

Last Quarter Moon

20:28 local · Sun 1 Nov

Below horizonMoon at -13° altitude

Last Quarter Moon occurs at 20:28 local time in London on 1 November. Half of the visible disc is lit on the opposite side from first quarter. Morning observers get the best view of the terminator.

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

Discover the Moon

Daily featured lunar feature

LRO surface
CopernicusCRATER · NASA / LRO SURFACE

Copernicus

Crater

9.6°N · 20.1°W · 93 km

A prominent impact crater with terraced walls and a cluster of central peaks. It sits in Oceanus Procellarum and is one of the easiest craters to identify with binoculars.

Best phase

A few days around first and 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 →
LondonNew YorkLos AngelesParisCape TownSingaporeTokyoSydney