Almanac – sun and moon today

An almanac is a yearly calendar of astronomical data about the sun and moon: sunrise, sunset, day length, moonrise, moonset and the phases of the moon. The almanac is one of the oldest forms of practical calendar and was used to plan everything from farming and fishing to holidays and festivals. On this page you get the key almanac data for your location – calculated astronomically and updated every day.

Sun and moon for your location

Use the almanac tool below to see today's sunrise, sunset and day length together with moonrise, moonset and the current moon phase. Tap «Find my location» to calculate the figures precisely for your coordinates. All times are local.

The phases of the moon

The moon runs through a fixed cycle of about 29.5 days – a so-called synodic month. The phase depends on how much of the moon's lit side we can see from Earth:

• New moon 🌑 – the moon sits almost between Earth and the Sun and is essentially invisible.
• Waxing crescent/gibbous 🌒🌔 – the lit part grows day by day.
• First quarter 🌓 – half the disc is lit and growing.
• Full moon 🌕 – the entire near side is lit.
• Waning gibbous/crescent 🌖🌘 – the lit part shrinks again.
• Last quarter 🌗 – half is lit and waning.

Today's moon phase and the illuminated fraction (the percentage of the disc that is lit) are shown in the tool above.

To dig deeper into daylight, see also sunrise today, sunset today, the solar calendar and the year chart, which shows how day length changes throughout the year.

What people actually used an almanac for

Before printed weather forecasts, the almanac was the most useful book in a rural household — often the only one bought new each year. It was not fortune-telling. It was a table of things that could be predicted with certainty a year ahead, in a world where almost nothing else could be: when the sun would rise, how long the working day would be, when the moon would be full enough to travel or harvest by, and when the tides would run.

That last point mattered enormously to coastal communities. Tides are driven by the moon, so a table of lunar phases doubled as a rough tide table. And the full moon was a genuine logistical resource: a night with a full moon high in the sky gave several hours of usable light outdoors, which is why harvest work and long journeys were routinely scheduled around it. The harvest moon is named for exactly this.

Why the moon rises later every day

One almanac figure surprises people more than any other: moonrise moves later each day, typically by around 50 minutes, and the shift is not constant through the month.

The reason is that the moon is orbiting the Earth while the Earth rotates. In the roughly 24 hours it takes your location to spin back to face the same point in the sky, the moon has moved on about 13° along its orbit — so the Earth has to turn a little further to catch up with it. That extra rotation takes the better part of an hour.

This is also why the moon and sun drift apart in the sky over the month. At new moon they rise together, which is why a new moon is invisible: it is up during the day, lost in the glare. By first quarter the moon rises around midday and sets around midnight. At full moon it rises as the sun sets and sets as the sun rises — the two are opposite each other, which is what makes it full. By last quarter it does not rise until around midnight and is still up well into the morning.

Yes, the moon is often visible in daylight

A common assumption is that the moon is a night-time object. It is not — it is above the horizon for roughly twelve hours out of every twenty-four, and a good deal of that is daytime. For about half the lunar month the moon is up during daylight and perfectly visible as a pale shape against a blue sky.

The exceptions are the two extremes. Around new moon it is too close to the sun to pick out, and around full moon it is almost exactly opposite the sun, so it rises as daylight fades. Between those, the waxing moon is an afternoon and evening object, and the waning moon a morning one. If you have ever noticed a half moon high overhead at lunchtime and thought it looked wrong, it was not.

Using the almanac today

The practical uses have shifted but not disappeared:

• Photography. The golden hour and the blue hour are both fixed by the sun's altitude, so they are predictable to the minute. Knowing the moon phase matters too — a bright moon washes out a night sky, while a new moon does not.
• Stargazing. The dark window is the gap between the end of astronomical twilight and the start of the next one, minus however much the moon is lighting up. Around full moon there is effectively no dark window at all.
• Gardening. Day length, not temperature, is what most plants use to time budburst, flowering and dormancy. A warm spell in February does not fool a tree; the light does.
• Travel and hiking. The figure you want is rarely sunset — it is the end of civil twilight, which is when it genuinely stops being light enough to walk safely without a torch.

For the sun side of the picture in more depth, see what day length is and when it gets dark. The moon phase calendar covers the lunar month in detail, and lunar eclipses explains what happens when the alignment at full moon is exact.

Frequently asked questions about the almanac

What is an almanac?

An almanac is a yearly calendar of astronomical data about the sun and moon – including sunrise, sunset, day length, moonrise, moonset and the phases of the moon. It was traditionally used to plan farming, fishing and holidays.

What is the moon phase today?

The moon phase today is calculated from how much of the moon's lit side we can see from Earth. Use the almanac tool on this page to see the current phase and illuminated fraction for your location.

How long is a lunar cycle?

The moon completes a full cycle from new moon to new moon in about 29.5 days. This is called a synodic month.