Moon Position Map — Where Is the Moon Right Now?

Live world map showing where the moon is right now. The pale-blue line is the moon-up / moon-down boundary; the shaded region is where the moon is currently below the horizon. The moon emoji marks the sublunar point — the single spot on Earth where the moon is directly overhead. Click anywhere for that location's moonrise, moonset, altitude, and azimuth.

What is the moon position map? Definition and Astronomical Facts

A moon position map is the lunar equivalent of a day/night map. Where the day/night map shows the boundary between sun-up and sun-down regions, the moon position map shows the boundary between moon-up (where the moon is currently above the horizon) and moon-down (where it is below) regions. Unlike day and night, this boundary is not directly tied to wall-clock time of day — the moon can be up at noon or absent at midnight.

Sublunar point:the single spot on Earth where the moon is at the zenith (directly overhead). Its latitude follows the moon's declination — between roughly +28°N and -28°S, swinging on a 27.3-day cycle modulated by the 18.6-year nodal cycle of the lunar orbit. Its longitude moves westward at about 14.5° per hour. Sublunar speed: at the equator, about 1,610 km/h on the ground — slightly slower than the subsolar point because the moon is also orbiting Earth eastward at ~0.5°/hour.

Where is the moon right now? It is overhead at the sublunar point marked on the live map above. It is visible (above the horizon) everywhere outside the shaded region. Whether you can see it from a moon-up location also depends on: local cloud cover, time of day (the moon competes with sunlight when the sky is bright), and current phase (a thin crescent is harder to spot near the sun than a full moon).

How to use the Moon Position Map

1. Open the world map. The thin pale-blue line is the moon-up / moon-down boundary — the locus where the moon is exactly on the horizon right now. The shaded region is everywhere the moon is currently below the horizon (not visible, even if it's daytime). The moon emoji shows the sublunar point: the single spot on Earth where the moon is directly overhead at this exact moment.
2. Watch the boundary move. The map updates every 30 seconds. The sublunar point drifts westward at about 14.5° of longitude per hour — slightly slower than the sun (15°/hour) because the moon is also orbiting Earth. Over a 24-hour day, the sublunar point lags the subsolar point by about 12.5°, which is why moonrise comes about 50 minutes later each day.
3. Click anywhere for moonrise, moonset, and altitude. Click any point on the map to open a popup with that location's current moon altitude (degrees above or below the horizon), azimuth (compass direction), and today's moonrise and moonset times. Useful for astrophotography, deep-sky observing, and figuring out when the moon will interfere with stargazing.
4. Read the phase and distance facts. The cards above the map show current UTC, the moon's phase (new, crescent, quarter, gibbous, or full) with illumination percentage, the sublunar coordinates, and the moon's current distance from Earth (varies between roughly 356,500 km at perigee and 406,700 km at apogee due to the moon's elliptical orbit).

The eight moon phases explained

The moon does not produce its own light — it reflects sunlight. As the moon orbits Earth, the angle between sun, Earth, and moon changes, and we see different fractions of the lit half. The full cycle takes 29.5 days (the synodic month) and is divided into eight named phases:

• 🌑 New moon (0%): moon is between Earth and sun; the lit side faces away from us. Invisible in the daytime sky and absent at night.
• 🌒 Waxing crescent (1-49%): a thin lit crescent on the right (Northern Hemisphere view). Visible in the western evening sky after sunset.
• 🌓 First quarter (50%): half lit on the right. Rises around noon, sets around midnight. Often the easiest phase to see in the daytime sky.
• 🌔 Waxing gibbous (51-99%): mostly lit, dark sliver on the left. Rises mid-afternoon, sets in the small hours.
• 🌕 Full moon (100%): fully lit disk. Rises near sunset, sets near sunrise. Up all night.
• 🌖 Waning gibbous (99-51%): mostly lit, dark sliver on the right. Rises after sunset, sets after sunrise.
• 🌗 Last quarter (50%): half lit on the left. Rises around midnight, sets around noon.
• 🌘 Waning crescent (49-1%): a thin lit crescent on the left. Visible in the eastern morning sky before sunrise.

The lunar orbit: perigee, apogee, and supermoons

The moon's orbit around Earth is elliptical, not circular. The closest point — perigee — is about 356,500 km from Earth's centre; the farthest — apogee— is about 406,700 km. The full perigee-to-apogee cycle takes 27.55 days (the anomalistic month), so the moon's distance varies by roughly 50,000 km over a few weeks.

At perigee, the moon's apparent disk is about 33.5 arcminutes across; at apogee, about 29.4 arcminutes — a 14% size difference and a 30% brightness difference. When perigee coincides with full moon, we get a supermoon: a noticeably bigger and brighter full moon. Three to four supermoons typically occur per year, often clustered in consecutive months.

At the opposite extreme — apogee plus full moon — we get a micromoon: the smallest and dimmest full moon of the year. The current distance to the moon is shown in the live facts above the map; values below ~360,000 km signal the moon is in its supermoon range.

How the moon's position differs from the sun's

The sun and moon follow similar daily arcs across the sky, but their long-term motion differs in three ways:

• Declination range.The sun's declination swings between ±23.4° (the latitudes of the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn) on a 365-day cycle. The moon's declination swings between ±28° (during major standstills) on a 27-day cycle. The 5° offset is the inclination of the moon's orbit relative to the ecliptic.
• Daily motion rate.The sun moves westward at exactly 15° per hour; the moon at about 14.5° per hour. The 0.5°/hour difference is the moon's eastward orbital motion partially cancelling Earth's rotation, which is why the moon rises about 50 minutes later each day on average.
• Visibility window. The sun is bright enough to be visible across the entire daylight hemisphere. The moon must compete with sunlight in the bright daytime sky and is best observed at night — but its 'moon-up' zone covers half of Earth at any moment regardless of whether it is day or night there.

Related tools and resources

For the sun's equivalent, see the Day/Night Map — which shows where the sun is up and the live subsolar point. For point-specific solar and lunar data, use the Sun Position Calculator and the Sunrise & Sunset Calculator. The Time Zone Finder gives the political time zone at any location.

For the geographic lines that bound the lunar declination range, see the Equator, Tropic of Cancer, and Tropic of Capricorn tools — the moon can pass overhead at slightly higher latitudes (up to ±28°) than the sun (±23.4°) due to its 5° orbital tilt.

Frequently asked questions about the moon position map