Where Is the Moon Right Now? Direction and Height

To find the Moon, you need two numbers: its direction on the compass (the azimuth, in degrees from true north) and its height above the horizon (the altitude, from 0° on the horizon to 90° straight overhead). This page gives both for your town right now, tonight’s path hour by hour, and where the Moon rises and sets.

How to use it

Type your town (or “lat, lon”, or use your location). The answer says which way to look and how high, and it updates every minute while the page is open. If the Moon is below the horizon, it says when and where it rises. The dial below is a compass seen from above, like a map: north at the top, east on the right, the horizon at the edge and the point straight overhead in the middle. The yellow line is the Moon’s path tonight, a dot for every hour it is up, green where it rises and red where it sets. To plan another night, pick it under “Night of”: the answer then gives the moonrise, the moonset and the Moon’s highest point that night. The link keeps your town and night. Your own location never goes into it.

Where the numbers come from

The page works out the Moon’s position in your browser from the standard lunar series. It is the same maths the Moon Phase Calendar uses for moonrise and moonset. It gives the numbers the way the U.S. Naval Observatory’s “Altitude and Azimuth of the Moon” tables do: “The altitude and azimuth values are for the center of the apparent disk of the Sun or Moon. The altitude values include the effect of standard atmospheric refraction when the object is above the horizon. The azimuth values are computed with respect to true north (not magnetic).” We checked it against those tables for New York, Los Angeles, Anchorage and Honolulu on three days, and it lands within about half a degree. Right at the horizon the gap can reach a degree, where the bending of light by the air (refraction) starts and stops counting. For comparison, the Moon itself is about half a degree wide. Moonrise and moonset follow the Observatory’s definition: “Moonrise and moonset times are computed for exactly the same circumstances as for sunrise and sunset”, which means the moment the top edge of the Moon touches a level horizon.

The Moon over New York on October 15, 2026

A day Moon: a waxing crescent that rose just after noon and set at about 9 PM, so it crossed the sky in daylight. These are the Naval Observatory’s own figures, in Eastern Daylight Time, beside this page’s:

The Moon reached its highest point, about 21° due south at 4:45 PM. Like the Sun, the Moon is highest when it crosses due south (from the northern half of the US). The height it reaches changes through the month and the year.

Worked examples

• Photographing the supermoon rising. In New York the full moon of November 24, 2026 rises at 4:16 PM (the Naval Observatory’s time), northeast (55°). Stand where a skyline or a bridge lies in that direction from you, and be there before 4:16 PM. The Moon is brightest against a still-blue sky in the first minutes after it clears the buildings.
• The moonrise moves along the horizon. Through November 2026 the moonrise in New York swings from 128° (southeast) on November 11 to 52° (northeast) on November 25, across 75° of horizon in two weeks. A spot that frames the moonrise one night can miss it a week later, so check the direction for your night.
• The winter full moon rides high, the summer one low. The full moon of December 23, 2026 climbs to 55° over Anchorage and is up 22 of the 24 hours from noon to noon. The full moon of June 18, 2027 gets only 2° above Anchorage’s horizon, for about 3 hours. A full moon sits opposite the Sun, so it is high in winter when the Sun is low, and low in summer when the Sun is high.
• A Moon in daylight. On October 15, 2026 the Moon was up over New York from 12:22 PM to 9:02 PM (the Naval Observatory’s times), highest in the south in mid-afternoon (the table above). A Moon in the day sky is normal for about half of every month.

Common mistakes

• Using a phone compass set to magnetic north. The directions here, like the Naval Observatory’s, are from true north. Magnetic north is off by an amount that depends on where you are; NOAA’s magnetic declination calculator gives yours. Most phones can show true north in their compass settings.
• Expecting the Moon on the horizon at moonrise when hills or buildings are in the way. The times assume a level horizon. Behind a ridge, the Moon appears later and higher up.
• Looking for the Moon at night near the new moon. Near the new moon it rises and sets with the Sun and is up mostly in daylight, too thin to see. The phase is under the answer.
• Using yesterday’s direction. The Moon rises about 50 minutes later each day on average, and in a different place on the horizon. Check the night you will be out.

Under the night sky

Where to watch: the dark sky parks of the US, the darkest skies on Earth, which states can see the Milky Way and where to see it in Florida. For the darkest nights, when the Moon is out of the way, use the Stargazing Planner.