Thursday, October 29, 2026
Moon phase today: Waning Gibbous
82.5% illuminated · waning
The Moon is below the horizon now. It rises at 9:12 PM in the northeast.
The Moon today
Times for Columbus, US
- Moonrise
- NE
- Highest
- 77°
- Moonset
- NW
Dark sky tonight
Fully dark with no Moon: 8:04 PM–9:12 PM (1 hr 8 min).
- Height now
- Below the horizon
- Age
- 19.1 days
- Distance
- 365,100 km
- Constellation
- Taurus
Coming phases
Distance from Earth
365,100 km right now
- Perigee 359,300 km
- Apogee 405,600 km
October 2026
- 1 71%
- 2 60%
- 3 Last qtr
- 4 38%
- 5 27%
- 6 18%
- 7 10%
- 8 5%
- 9 1%
- 10 New
- 11 1%
- 12 4%
- 13 9%
- 14 16%
- 15 23%
- 16 32%
- 17 41%
- 18 First qtr
- 19 60%
- 20 69%
- 21 78%
- 22 86%
- 23 92%
- 24 97%
- 25 100%
- 26 Full
- 27 97%
- 28 91%
- 29 84%
- 30 74%
- 31 63%
- Moon phase
- Perigee or apogee
- Eclipse
- Planets
- Equinox or solstice
Events in October 2026
-
Perigee
The Moon's closest point to Earth on this orbit: 369,300 km.
-
9:25 AM
Last Quarter
Half of the disc is lit. The Moon rises around midnight and is up through the morning.
-
8:12 AM
Saturn at opposition
Opposite the Sun in the sky: up all night and at its brightest for the year.
-
2:01 AM
Moon and Mars close together
They pass 1.1° apart in the sky.
-
6:22 AM
Moon and Jupiter close together
They pass 0.2° apart in the sky.
-
11:50 AM
New Moon
The Moon passes between Earth and the Sun and cannot be seen. These are the darkest nights of the month.
-
12:26 AM
Moon and Venus close together
They pass 2.8° apart in the sky.
-
6:06 AM
Mercury at greatest elongation
25° from the Sun in the evening sky, its best showing after sunset.
-
2:49 PM
Moon and Mercury close together
They pass 2.0° apart in the sky.
-
Apogee
The Moon's farthest point from Earth on this orbit: 404,600 km.
-
12:13 PM
First Quarter
Half of the disc is lit. The Moon is high at sunset and sets around midnight.
-
7:54 PM
Moon and Neptune close together
They pass 4.3° apart in the sky.
-
11:33 PM
Venus at inferior conjunction
Passes between Earth and the Sun and is lost in its glare.
-
6:28 AM
Moon, Neptune, and Saturn gathered
All within 7.6° of each other in the sky.
-
12:12 AM
Full Moon
The whole disc is lit. The Moon rises around sunset and stays up all night.
-
Perigee
The Moon's closest point to Earth on this orbit: 364,400 km.
Times are local to America/New York. Each Moon is drawn as it looks at midday.
The sky tonight
What you can see
The Moon is below the horizon, so it does not brighten the sky.
- Faintest stars
- magnitude 6.2
- Stars in view
- about 1,700
- Cloud cover (forecast)
- Air (forecast)
For a clear sky far from city lights. Magnitude measures brightness: the lower the number, the brighter the star. East is on the left, as it is when you look up.
Planets tonight
When each planet is high enough in a dark enough sky over the next 24 hours.
| Planet | Visible | Highest | Brightness | Constellation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury | Too close to the Sun | – | 2.1 naked eye | Libra |
| Venus | Too close to the Sun | – | -4.2 naked eye | Virgo |
| Mars | 1:48 AM–7:31 AM | 64° SE 7:23 AM | 0.9 naked eye | Cancer |
| Jupiter | 2:21 AM–7:31 AM | 59° SE 7:23 AM | -2.0 naked eye | Leo |
| Saturn | 7:01 PM–5:15 AM | 51° S 11:33 PM | 0.4 naked eye | Cetus |
| Uranus | 8:23 PM–7:31 AM | 71° S 3:03 AM | 5.6 binoculars | Taurus |
| Neptune | 7:01 PM–4:40 AM | 50° S 11:03 PM | 7.8 telescope | Pisces |
Visible means at least 5° above the horizon while the Sun is at least 6° below it. Brightness is apparent magnitude: lower is brighter.
Coming up
-
Penumbral lunar eclipse
· 6:12 PM
in 114 days
The Moon passes through Earth's faint outer shadow and dims slightly.
Partly visible from Columbus: the Moon is below the horizon for some of it.
-
Annular solar eclipse
· 10:59 AM
in 100 days
The Moon passes in front of the Sun but is too far away to cover it, leaving a ring of light.
Not visible from Columbus.
-
December solstice
· 3:50 PM
in 53 days
The shortest day in the northern hemisphere and the longest in the southern.
How this is calculated
Every figure on this page is calculated for the moment you load it, from the positions of the Sun, Earth and Moon. Phase, distance and events are the same everywhere on Earth; rise and set times, the Moon's height and its tilt depend on where you are.
The calculations are checked against NASA JPL's Horizons system. Phase times agree to within a minute, rise and set times to within about a minute and a half, and the Moon's distance to within about 50 km.
The Moon is drawn from NASA's lunar maps and lit from the Sun's true direction, so the shadow line falls on the right craters, the disc wobbles as the real one does, and it grows and shrinks as its distance changes.
The stars behind the page are the real ones around the Moon, from the Yale Bright Star Catalogue, down to magnitude 5.3. How many of them show, and how much the sky lightens, follows a published model of moonlight (Krisciunas and Schaefer, 1991) for a clear sky far from city lights. When the Moon is shown as it sits in your sky, your horizon is drawn and a low Moon takes the warm colour that the air gives it; otherwise that patch of sky is taken to be 45° above the horizon. The background is always a night sky, even by day, and the Moon is drawn dozens of times larger than its true size among the stars. The cloud and haze forecast comes from Open-Meteo and changes nothing else on the page except the colour of a low Moon.