What the poster shows
| On the poster | What it is |
|---|---|
| A Moon for every day | the Moon at noon in your time zone, lit on the side the Sun lights it |
| Phase days | on the day of a new moon, quarter or full moon the disc shows that exact phase |
| Full moon names | the traditional name under each full moon, a Blue Moon when a month has two |
| The list | every full moon of the year with its date, under the grid |
Reading it
- Each row is a month and each column a day of the month, 1 to 31.
- Follow a row and the Moon grows from a thin crescent to full and shrinks back in about 29.5 days, so most months hold one full moon and one new moon.
- Tap a day on the screen for the exact time of a phase: good for planning a night walk or a photo of the full moon rising.
The star map poster draws the whole sky of one night, and more for the coming year is on the New Year page.
Questions
How exact are the dates and times?
The phases come from a short series for the Sun and the Moon, the same one the star map uses; for 2026 and 2027 its new and full moons agree with the US Naval Observatory's table to a minute or two (the January 2027 full moon: 12:18 UT here, 12:17 UT there). A phase within a few minutes of midnight could land on the neighboring day; the poster shows the date in your time zone.
Why does the time zone change the poster?
A full moon happens at one instant for the whole Earth, but that instant has a different date in different places. The January 2027 new moon is on January 7 at 20:23 in London and on January 8 in the morning in Tokyo. Choose the zone you live in and every date on the poster is yours.
Where do the full moon names come from?
They are the traditional North American names, one for each month: Wolf, Snow, Worm, Pink, Flower, Strawberry, Buck, Sturgeon, Corn, Hunter's, Beaver and Cold. The full moon nearest the September equinox is the Harvest Moon and the one after it the Hunter's Moon; a second full moon in a calendar month is called a Blue Moon.
Does it work for the Southern Hemisphere?
Yes. Choose "Southern hemisphere" and every Moon is drawn the way it looks from there: a waxing Moon is lit on the left. The dates and the phases are the same everywhere.
What size should I print?
A3 or Tabloid makes each Moon about 7 mm across and reads from across a room; a copy shop prints them. On Letter or A4 the poster still holds all 365 days. The PDF draws every Moon as a vector shape, so any size prints sharp.