Moon Phase Today

Written by Orbitarot · Sources: our own engine, positions checked against NASA JPL Horizons (method); place data GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); interpretations our own · Updated October 7, 2026

What makes the phases

The Moon is always half lit by the Sun; the phase is how much of that lit half faces us. It depends on one number, the angle between the Sun and the Moon as seen from Earth, called the elongation.

The full cycle, from one new Moon to the next, takes on average 29.53 days (the synodic month). The four main phases are instants, not days: the full Moon happens at one moment worldwide, so its local date depends on your time zone. The calculator gives each moment in your own time zone.

Full Moon tonight? Why it looks full for three days

The lit fraction follows the elongation smoothly. Around full Moon the change is slow, so the Moon is more than 97% lit for about a day and a half before and after the exact moment, three days in all. To the eye it looks full on all of them. That is why people disagree about whether the full Moon is "tonight" or "tomorrow": both nights look full, and only one contains the exact moment.

The same goes for the new Moon in reverse: for a day or two around it the Moon is too close to the Sun to see. The first thin crescent usually appears in the evening sky one to two days after the new Moon.

Exact phase times and blue Moons

The monthly calendar shows the phase for every day of the month you choose, with the exact times of the four main phases. Most months have one full Moon; because the synodic month is shorter than every calendar month except February, about every two and a half to three years a month has two, and the second is popularly called a blue Moon. February can have none.

Each day also shows the Moon's zodiac sign. The Moon changes sign about every two and a half days, so the sign of the full Moon changes from month to month. A full Moon always falls in the sign opposite the Sun: when the Sun is in Aries, the full Moon is in Libra.

New Moon and full Moon dates 2026 and 2027

Every new Moon and full Moon of 2026 and 2027, with the exact moment of each. The times are in Universal Time (UTC), so where you live the date of a phase that falls near midnight UTC can be a day earlier or later; the calendar above shows the same moments in your time zone. When a month has two full Moons, the second is the one popularly called a blue Moon.

Computed with the same astronomy engine as the calendar above, to the minute in Universal Time (UTC).

We checked these times against the US Naval Observatory: all 99 new Moons, quarters and full Moons of 2026 and 2027 came within 0.74 minutes.

Dane Rudhyar's eight birth phases

Enter your birth date, and time if you know it, to see the phase the Moon was in when you were born. Astrologers who use it, following Dane Rudhyar's work on the lunation cycle, split the cycle into eight 45-degree phases: new, crescent, first quarter, gibbous, full, disseminating, last quarter and balsamic. Each is read as a personal rhythm, for example a new Moon birth as instinctive and starting things, a full Moon birth as aware of others and of balance, a balsamic birth as reflective and finishing things. These are symbolic readings.

Your birth Moon phase is different from your Moon sign: the phase measures the Moon against the Sun, the sign measures it against the zodiac. Example: if your Sun was at 10 degrees Gemini and your Moon at 25 degrees Leo, the Moon was 75 degrees ahead of the Sun, in the crescent phase (45 to 90 degrees), just before first quarter.

Other Moon tools

The void of course Moon calendar lists the hours when the Moon makes no more aspects before changing sign. The lunar return calculator finds when the Moon returns to its birth degree each month. Eclipses can only happen when a new or full Moon falls near the lunar nodes, which are on the North Node calculator. In the tarot, the Moon's planet card is The High Priestess.

Questions

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