Tonight's Moon: New Moon

A moon calendar tracks the lunar cycle day by day: the current moon phase, illumination percentage, moon age, and moonrise and moonset times. People use it to plan night-sky photography, gardening, fishing, religious observances, and outdoor activities around New Moons and Full Moons.

Photographers, gardeners, farmers, fishers, hunters, astronomers, astrologers, and observers of lunar-based religious and cultural festivals all use a lunar calendar. Anyone who needs to know when the next Full Moon or New Moon falls benefits from a free moon calendar like Open Moon Calendar.

Yes. Open Moon Calendar is a 100% free moon calendar with no account, no paywall, and no login. Every feature — moon phases, the full moon calendar for 2025 and 2026, moonrise and moonset times, eclipse pages, and offline mode — is free forever.

A moon phase calendar tells you how much of the Moon is lit and when it rises and sets, so you can plan around darkness or moonlight. Use New Moons for the darkest stargazing skies, Full Moons for bright night landscapes, and quarter phases to follow the steady 29.53-day lunar rhythm.

The 8 main moon phases in order are: New Moon, Waxing Crescent, First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous, Full Moon, Waning Gibbous, Last Quarter, and Waning Crescent. They repeat every 29.53 days (one synodic month) and are all shown in the monthly grid on Open Moon Calendar.

Waxing means the illuminated part of the Moon is growing, from New Moon toward Full Moon. Waning means it is shrinking, from Full Moon back toward New Moon. In the Northern Hemisphere a waxing Moon lights up from the right; in the Southern Hemisphere it lights up from the left.

“Gibbous” means more than half but not fully illuminated. A Waxing Gibbous grows from half toward a Full Moon, and a Waning Gibbous shrinks from a Full Moon back toward half. Both gibbous phases look like a nearly full, slightly lopsided disc.

“Quarter” refers to the Moon’s position one-quarter and three-quarters through its 29.53-day cycle, not to its shape. At First Quarter about half the visible face is lit and growing; at Last (Third) Quarter about half is lit and shrinking — hence the “Half Moon” appearance.

Astronomically, the Full Moon is the brightest phase at nearly 100% illumination, and the New Moon gives the darkest skies for stargazing. Culturally, many traditions treat the Full Moon and New Moon as the most significant phases for rituals, festivals, and intention-setting.

A Blue Moon is the second Full Moon in a single calendar month (about every 2–3 years), or by the seasonal definition, the third Full Moon in a season with four. Despite the name, the Moon does not turn blue — it looks like an ordinary Full Moon.

The traditional Full Moon names are: January Wolf Moon, February Snow Moon, March Worm Moon, April Pink Moon, May Flower Moon, June Strawberry Moon, July Buck Moon, August Sturgeon Moon, September Harvest Moon, October Hunter’s Moon, November Beaver Moon, and December Cold Moon. Open Moon Calendar labels each Full Moon with its folklore name.

The “age” of the Moon is the number of days since the last New Moon, from 0 to about 29.53. A Moon aged ~7 days is near First Quarter, ~15 days near Full Moon, and ~22 days near Last Quarter. Open Moon Calendar shows the exact moon age in days for every date.

Open Moon Calendar computes moon phases 100% in your browser using the established SunCalc astronomical algorithms. Phase instants (New, First Quarter, Full, Last Quarter) are refined to the exact minute and displayed in your local time, with illumination, moon age, distance, and moonrise and moonset derived from your coordinates.

No. Open Moon Calendar never uploads, stores on a server, sells, or uses your location for ads. If you grant permission or pick a city, the coordinates are saved only in your own browser’s local storage so your moon calendar remembers your city between visits.

Yes. Once the page has loaded, all lunar maths runs locally in your browser with no network requests, so the calendar keeps working on planes, mountains, and rural stargazing trips with no signal. Your chosen city, units, and theme stay saved on-device.

When you tap “Use Current Location,” your browser asks for one-time permission via the Geolocation API. Open Moon Calendar rounds the result, matches it to the nearest city name, detects your timezone from your device, and saves it only locally. If you deny permission, you can still pick any city or enter custom coordinates manually.

Photographers use a moon calendar to choose between darkness and moonlight: New Moons give the darkest skies for Milky Way shots, while Full Moons illuminate night landscapes. Checking moonrise and moonset times plus illumination percentage lets them schedule shoots, avoid washed-out stars, and plan moonrise compositions.

Traditional and biodynamic planting lore links the waxing Moon (New to Full) with stronger leaf growth from rising sap, and the waning Moon (Full to New) with root development — a popular time for sowing root crops, transplanting, and pruning. Gardeners use the moon calendar to time sowing by these rhythms, though scientific evidence is limited.

Solunar theory holds that fish and game are most active during the Moon’s overhead (transit) and underfoot passages, with major periods near Full and New Moons and minor periods at moonrise and moonset. Anglers and hunters check lunar transit and rise/set times in a moon calendar to plan trips around these feeding windows.

The most common reasons are daylight (a daytime Moon is faint against the blue sky), clouds or haze, buildings, trees, or hills blocking a low Moon, and — near New Moon — almost zero illumination. The calculator shows the astronomical position; local visibility still depends on weather, terrain, and sky brightness.