Dates of New Moon:

To use the night-by-night charts of the Moon in these web resources and in the Turn Left at Orion Moon chapter, you need to know how many nights you are into the lunar month.

To learn that, count backwards from tonight’s date to the most recent New Moon date in the table below. For example, if tonight is March 28, 2026 you would look down the left column until you reach ‘2026’ and then over to see that that it was New Moon on February 17 and then 9 days ago March 19. Therefore, on the page ‘The Moon, Night by Night’ you should start looking under ‘Gibbous Moon’ (nights 9 & 10).

Remember that this calculation is only approximate, for a couple of reasons. First, these dates are in UT (Greenwich Mean Time) - not necessarily for your time zone. Second, the non-circular orbit of the Moon produces librations (apparent wobbles) of the Moon that can advance or delay the appearance of lunar features by up to about a day.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
2019	6	4	6	5	4	3	2	1, 30	28	28	26	26
2020	24	23	24	23	22	21	20	19	17	15	15	14
2021	13	11	13	12	11	10	10	8	7	6	4	4
2022	2	1	2	1, 30	30	29	28	27	25	25	23	23
2023	21	20	21	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	13
2024	11	9	10	8	8	6	5	4	3	2	1	1, 30
2025	29	28	19	27	27	25	24	23	21	21	20	20
2026	18	17	19	17	16	15	14	12	11	10	9	9
2027	7	6	8	6	6	4	4	2, 31	30	29	28	27
2028	26	25	26	24	24	22	22	20	18	18	16	16
2029	14	13	15	13	13	12	11	10	8	7	6	5
2030	4	2	4	2	2	1, 30	30	28	27	26	25	24
2031	23	21	23	21	21	19	19	18	16	16	14	14
2032	12	11	11	10	9	8	7	6	4	4	3	2

To learn about some of the most interesting features visible on tonight's Moon and to plan for upcoming lunar eclipses, check out the links below.