Moon phase calendar

Reading a moon phase in 30 seconds

The percentage you see is the fraction of the visible disc lit by the Sun. Zero is a new moon (the disc faces away from us), 50 is a half-lit quarter, and 100 is full. The phase name tells you which side of the cycle you are on. "Waxing" means growing toward full; "waning" means shrinking toward new. A waxing crescent in the northern hemisphere lights the right edge; a waning crescent lights the left. South of the equator the orientation flips.

Why moonrise isn't always at night

Unlike the Sun, the Moon rises about 50 minutes later each day. That drift means a full moon rises around sunset and stays up all night, but a waxing crescent already rose in the morning and is setting in the evening. If you want to photograph the Moon over a city skyline, what you want is the moonrise close to local sunset, which only happens around the full moon. For dark-sky astronomy you want the opposite: a new moon, when the Moon has effectively swapped places with the Sun and is below the horizon all night.

Supermoons explained (and the next 3)

A supermoon is a full moon that coincides with the Moon's closest approach to Earth (perigee). Because the lunar orbit is slightly elliptical, perigee distance varies by about 14% from apogee. When perigee lines up with the full phase, the Moon appears roughly 7% larger and 16% brighter than an average full moon. The label "supermoon" is not formal astronomy, different sources draw the cutoff differently. This tool flags any full moon whose closest perigee falls within 24 hours.

If you are planning around dawn or dusk light too, pair this with the golden hour calculator. For a shared shoot plan across teams, the time zone converter handles the cross-city coordination.