The moon isn't just a night-time thing. It keeps its own schedule, rising about 50 minutes later each day, so over a month it moves through every hour of the clock. Pick any date, time and place below to see exactly where it is, then scroll down for the whole cycle in plain words.
Moon image: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, rendered from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data (public domain). The Hunter's Moon, Oct 26, 2026.
Greenwich, London
Animate:
Speed
Southern Hemisphere: compared with the Northern Hemisphere the moon looks upside-down. A growing (waxing) moon is lit on the left, and the moon is highest toward the north. The explanations below are written for the Northern Hemisphere, so swap left/right and north/south.
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Where
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Height
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Moonrise
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Highest (due south)
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Moonset
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Sun
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Sunrise / sunset
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Distance
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Coming up
Your sky right then
A 360° view of the horizon from where you stand. Dotted lines show the path the moon (silver) and sun (gold) take across the sky that day. Drag sideways on the picture to move through the hours.
Moon path Sun path Trees & rooftops (hide a low moon)
Looking down from space
Sunlight comes from the right. The moon circles Earth once a month (counter-clockwise from above). The orange dot is you, carried around once a day as Earth spins. You can only see the moon when it's in the shaded half on your side of the dashed horizon line. Drag sideways to send the moon around its orbit.
Moon height through the day
Above the line = up in the sky. The shaded part is night. The white line is the time you picked.
Moon Sun
When is the moon up? Thirty days at a glance
Each row is a day; each bar shows the hours the moon is above the horizon. Watch the bar slide about 50 minutes later every day. That's why the moon shows up in the evening one week and the morning the next. Tap a row to jump to that day.
Month
The moon's face on each date (at 9 PM). Tap a day to jump there. Highlighted days are the big four moments of the cycle.
The moon's cycle in plain words
Three simple facts explain almost everything:
The moon shines only by sunlight. Half of it is always lit, the half facing the sun. The "phase" is just how much of that lit half is turned toward us.
It goes around Earth about once a month (29.5 days from one new moon to the next). Each day it moves about 12° along its orbit, in the same direction Earth spins.
Because of that, it rises about 50 minutes later each day (anywhere from about 25 to 75 minutes depending on the season). Earth has to spin a little extra each day to "catch up" to the moon. Over a month, that delay adds up to a full 24 hours, so the moon visits every hour of the clock, including the daytime.
Handy rule of thumb: where the moon is compared with the sun tells you its phase. Next to the sun = new (invisible). A quarter of the way around the sky from the sun = half moon. Opposite the sun = full. So a full moon rises as the sun sets, and a moon you see in the morning daylight is a waning (shrinking) moon, lit on its left side.
Tip for finding it: hold your fist at arm's length; it covers about 10° of sky. When the moon is less than one fist high, trees, houses and haze often hide it. Wait an hour after moonrise and look again.
"Full moon one night, gone the next, then up at 10 AM?" Here's why
A very common moon puzzle: you see a big full moon low in the east in the early evening, the next evenings you can't find it, and a few days later it is high in the sky at dawn and still up in the morning daylight. All of that is normal. Here is how the most recent full moon played out for your chosen place (tap Show me to see each moment in the sky view above).
Every time here is calculated in your browser for the place picked above, and it updates when you choose another place.
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Quick answers
Why is the moon in the sky during the day?
The moon is up for roughly 12 hours out of every 24, and those hours slide later each day. For about half the month a good part of those 12 hours falls in daylight. It is easiest to spot in the afternoon around first quarter (in the east) and in the morning around last quarter (in the west).
Does the full moon always rise at sunset?
Very close to it. A full moon is opposite the sun, so as the sun goes down in the west, the full moon comes up in the east. It is highest around midnight and sets near sunrise.
Why can't I see the new moon?
At new moon the moon is between us and the sun. The lit side faces away from us, and the moon is lost in the sun's glare. A day or two later a thin crescent appears low in the west just after sunset.
Why are moonrise times only 25-35 minutes apart some weeks?
The moon's path is tilted against your horizon by different amounts through the year. Around the autumn full moons (the Harvest and Hunter's Moons) the path is shallow, so moonrise comes only about half an hour later each evening. In spring the delay can stretch past an hour.
How accurate is this tool?
Positions come from the open-source Astronomy Engine library running in your browser, so nothing about your place is sent to BotBuhdy. Rise and set times include atmospheric bending and are usually within a minute of published tables. Hills, buildings and weather are up to you.
Which place does it show at first?
It starts at Greenwich, London (the home of the prime meridian) until you type a place or tap Use my location. Your choice is kept only in the page link, so you can bookmark or share it.
Sources and credits
Astronomy Engine by Don Cross, github.com/cosinekitty/astronomy (MIT licence): Moon and Sun positions, phases, rise and set times.
Open-Meteo, open-meteo.com: place search (geocoding) and time zones.
Moon image: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio, Moon Phase and Libration 2026, rendered from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data (public domain).
Rise and set times were spot-checked against timeanddate.com tables.
Photos credited to NASA, NOAA and other public-domain sources are used with thanks; BotBuhdy adds a small botbuhdy.com mark. Pictures labelled AI-generated illustration are artist-style illustrations made for this page, not photographs.
