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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: 03:00 · Fair (51/100).

London· United KingdomDefault locationThursday, 22 October 2026 · 04:15 · London

Tonight's verdict

Only a brief, low-quality opening

Weather-adjusted
51/100
Viewing score 51 out of 100, weather-adjusted, Night viewing.

Fair

No two-hour window clears 50/100. Best single hour: 03:00 · Fair (51/100)

Phase

Waxing Gibbous

Illumination

82%

Next moonrise

Today 16:21

Next moonset

Tomorrow 04:06

View tonight's outlookHow the score works

Open-Meteo hourly forecast for 04:00 local · cached up to 20 min

Current moon
Phase-correct

Waxing Gibbous · 82% lit

Altitude -13° · Azimuth 273° · 388,784 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

Viewing score

Cloud-weighted, per hour

Weather
51/100
Viewing score 51 out of 100, weather-adjusted, Night 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: 03:00 · Fair (51/100)

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

Overcast

96%

Cloud cover · 100% chance of precipitation

10°C nowValid 04:00 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 22 Oct · 05:00Moon -19°Cloud 58%Score 0 (Poor)Night
0°30°60°90°NOW · 04:1505:0008:0011:0014:0017:0020:0023:0002:0005:0005:00 · Moon -19° · Cloud 58% · Score 006:00 · Moon -28° · Cloud 85% · Score 007:00 · Moon -35° · Cloud 36% · Score 008:00 · Moon -41° · Cloud 16% · Score 009:00 · Moon -45° · Cloud 0% · Score 010:00 · Moon -45° · Cloud 20% · Score 011:00 · Moon -43° · Cloud 26% · Score 012:00 · Moon -37° · Cloud 62% · Score 013:00 · Moon -30° · Cloud 15% · Score 014:00 · Moon -22° · Cloud 9% · Score 015:00 · Moon -13° · Cloud 48% · Score 016:00 · Moon -3° · Cloud 51% · Score 017:00 · Moon 5° · Cloud 9% · Score 4318:00 · Moon 14° · Cloud 100% · Score 919:00 · Moon 21° · Cloud 100% · Score 2320:00 · Moon 28° · Cloud 100% · Score 4021:00 · Moon 32° · Cloud 100% · Score 4422:00 · Moon 34° · Cloud 100% · Score 4523:00 · Moon 33° · Cloud 100% · Score 4500:00 · Moon 30° · Cloud 100% · Score 4201:00 · Moon 24° · Cloud 100% · Score 3702:00 · Moon 17° · Cloud 100% · Score 3103:00 · Moon 9° · Cloud 7% · Score 5104:00 · Moon 1° · Cloud 66% · Score 2005:00 · Moon -8° · 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
Thu 22 Oct 05:00-19 degrees58%84%0 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 06:00-28 degrees85%51%0 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 07:00-35 degrees36%24%0 out of 100Twilight
Thu 22 Oct 08:00-41 degrees16%11%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 09:00-45 degrees0%4%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 10:00-45 degrees20%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 11:00-43 degrees26%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 12:00-37 degrees62%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 13:00-30 degrees15%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 14:00-22 degrees9%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 15:00-13 degrees48%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 16:00-3 degrees51%0%0 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 17:005 degrees9%0%43 out of 100Daylight
Thu 22 Oct 18:0014 degrees100%0%9 out of 100Twilight
Thu 22 Oct 19:0021 degrees100%0%23 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 20:0028 degrees100%22%40 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 21:0032 degrees100%52%44 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 22:0034 degrees100%76%45 out of 100Night
Thu 22 Oct 23:0033 degrees100%89%45 out of 100Night
Fri 23 Oct 00:0030 degrees100%96%42 out of 100Night
Fri 23 Oct 01:0024 degrees100%100%37 out of 100Night
Fri 23 Oct 02:0017 degrees100%100%31 out of 100Night
Fri 23 Oct 03:009 degrees7%100%51 out of 100Night
Fri 23 Oct 04:001 degrees66%100%20 out of 100Night
Fri 23 Oct 05:00-8 degrees100%99%0 out of 100Night

Why this recommendation

  • Waxing Gibbous at 82% illumination. The terminator gives the strongest crater shadows for the next few nights.
  • The Moon climbs to about 34° around 22:00.
  • Next moonrise: Thu 22 Oct at 16:21.
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
PlatoCRATER · SCHEMATIC MAP DETAIL

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. 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.

Lunar calendar →
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