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Live lunar conditions

Is tonight a Moon night?

A workable Moon night. The best window is 22:00–04:00; cloud cover is likely to be the limiting factor.

London· United KingdomDefault locationFriday, 23 October 2026 · 08:22 · London

Tonight's verdict

A workable Moon night

Weather-adjusted
59/100
Viewing score 59 out of 100, weather-adjusted, Night viewing.

Fair

Best window 22:00–04:00 · 6 hrs · Fair (59/100)

Look SSE · 34° above the horizon · 6 hrs

Phase

Waxing Gibbous

Illumination

90%

Next moonrise

Today 16:33

Next moonset

Tomorrow 05:25

View tonight's outlookHow the score works

Open-Meteo hourly forecast for 08:00 local · cached up to 20 min

Current moon
Phase-correct

Waxing Gibbous · 90% lit

Altitude -34° · Azimuth 323° · 382,381 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

22:00–04:00

6 hrs · look SSE · 34° altitude · 69% mean cloud

Fri 23 Oct · local time in London

NightSee it on the timeline

Viewing score

Cloud-weighted, per hour

Weather
59/100
Viewing score 59 out of 100, weather-adjusted, Night viewing.

Fair

Cloud likely to interfere

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

22:00–04:00

6 hrs · look SSE · 34° altitude

Starts Fri 23 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

Overcast

100%

Cloud cover · 100% chance of precipitation

12°C nowValid 08:00 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

Fri 23 Oct · 22:00Moon 39°Cloud 100%Score 50 (Fair)Night
0°30°60°90°BEST WINDOWNOW · 08:2209:0012:0015:0018:0021:0000:0003:0006:0009:0009:00 · Moon -36° · Cloud 100% · Score 010:00 · Moon -39° · Cloud 100% · Score 011:00 · Moon -39° · Cloud 100% · Score 012:00 · Moon -35° · Cloud 100% · Score 013:00 · Moon -30° · Cloud 100% · Score 014:00 · Moon -23° · Cloud 100% · Score 015:00 · Moon -14° · Cloud 100% · Score 016:00 · Moon -5° · Cloud 100% · Score 017:00 · Moon 3° · Cloud 100% · Score 018:00 · Moon 13° · Cloud 100% · Score 819:00 · Moon 21° · Cloud 100% · Score 2320:00 · Moon 29° · Cloud 95% · Score 4121:00 · Moon 35° · Cloud 98% · Score 4722:00 · Moon 39° · Cloud 100% · Score 5023:00 · Moon 41° · Cloud 100% · Score 5100:00 · Moon 39° · Cloud 100% · Score 5001:00 · Moon 35° · Cloud 79% · Score 5502:00 · Moon 28° · Cloud 34% · Score 7003:00 · Moon 20° · Cloud 0% · Score 7904:00 · Moon 12° · Cloud 100% · Score 2705:00 · Moon 3° · Cloud 27% · Score 5306:00 · Moon -5° · Cloud 17% · Score 007:00 · Moon -13° · Cloud 26% · Score 008:00 · Moon -21° · Cloud 79% · Score 009:00 · Moon -27° · Cloud 100% · 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
Fri 23 Oct 09:00-36 degrees100%100%0 out of 100Daylight
Fri 23 Oct 10:00-39 degrees100%100%0 out of 100Daylight
Fri 23 Oct 11:00-39 degrees100%99%0 out of 100Daylight
Fri 23 Oct 12:00-35 degrees100%97%0 out of 100Daylight
Fri 23 Oct 13:00-30 degrees100%96%0 out of 100Daylight
Fri 23 Oct 14:00-23 degrees100%99%0 out of 100Daylight
Fri 23 Oct 15:00-14 degrees100%100%0 out of 100Daylight
Fri 23 Oct 16:00-5 degrees100%100%0 out of 100Daylight
Fri 23 Oct 17:003 degrees100%87%0 out of 100Daylight
Fri 23 Oct 18:0013 degrees100%68%8 out of 100Twilight
Fri 23 Oct 19:0021 degrees100%49%23 out of 100Night
Fri 23 Oct 20:0029 degrees95%32%41 out of 100Night
Fri 23 Oct 21:0035 degrees98%16%47 out of 100Night
Fri 23 Oct 22:0039 degrees100%4%50 out of 100Night
Fri 23 Oct 23:0041 degrees100%0%51 out of 100Night
Sat 24 Oct 00:0039 degrees100%0%50 out of 100Night
Sat 24 Oct 01:0035 degrees79%0%55 out of 100Night
Sat 24 Oct 02:0028 degrees34%0%70 out of 100Night
Sat 24 Oct 03:0020 degrees0%0%79 out of 100Night
Sat 24 Oct 04:0012 degrees100%0%27 out of 100Night
Sat 24 Oct 05:003 degrees27%0%53 out of 100Night
Sat 24 Oct 06:00-5 degrees17%0%0 out of 100Night
Sat 24 Oct 07:00-13 degrees26%0%0 out of 100Night
Sat 24 Oct 08:00-21 degrees79%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Sat 24 Oct 09:00-27 degrees100%0%0 out of 100Daylight

Why this recommendation

  • Waxing Gibbous at 90% illumination. A bright Moon is easy to find, but head-on sunlight reduces surface contrast.
  • The Moon climbs to about 41° around 23:00.
  • Next moonrise: Fri 23 Oct at 16:33.
  • Forecast cloud cover averages 69% during the best window, with a 1% 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
TheophilusCRATER · SCHEMATIC MAP DETAIL

Theophilus

Crater

11.4°S · 26.4°E · 100 km

A large crater with a dramatic central mountain, adjoining Cyrillus and Catharina. The group sits on the western shore of Mare Nectaris.

Best phase

First quarter 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. 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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