Moon Lunation

Moon Lunation shows you the Moon's phase for any date between 2000 and 2050, and now the tides it drives, all computed on your device from the actual geometry of the Sun, Earth and Moon.

Moon Lunation is free. No connection. No account. No data collected. No ads, ever.

TODAY

The current phase, the illuminated percentage, how far through the lunation you are, and the next principal event in your local time.

CALENDAR

Any month from 2000 to 2050, with new moons, first quarters, full moons and last quarters marked on the local dates they occur.

CYCLE

Watch a lunation play out from one new moon to the next. The timeline runs between two actual computed new moons, so its length varies rather than being forced to 29.5 days. Scrub it with your finger, or play it through.

TIDES, WITH MOON LUNATION PRO

See today's tide curve set against the highest high and lowest low of the station's year, marked by two dashed lines, with a line of text giving each with its date. Also the next high and low tide and seven days of highs and lows, in metres or feet. Predictions are calculated on your device from each station's tidal constants, so Tides works with no connection.

Tides covers about 1,250 stations around the United States and 37 around the UK and the Isle of Man, from 2026 to 2030. On iPhone and iPad it can find the nearest station from your location, or you can choose a city. On Mac, you choose a city. Keep up to five favourite places.

These are astronomical predictions. Weather can change the real water level, and they are not for navigation.

SOLAR SYSTEM, WITH MOON LUNATION PRO

See the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, the Moon and Mars in 3D, placed by the same offline astronomy. On Mac, all eight planets, out to Neptune. Drag to orbit, pinch or scroll to zoom, tap a body for its distances, and scrub the timeline to watch the planets move.

Moon Lunation Pro is a one-time in-app purchase, not a subscription, and unlocks both Tides and the Solar System. If you already have Pro, or paid for Lunation or Moon Lunation before it became free, Tides is included at no extra cost. Family Sharing is on.

ON MAC

A native Mac app with a sidebar and inspector, keyboard control, a menu-bar Moon and desktop widgets.

THE MOON ITSELF

The surface is built from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter imagery, in a fixed north-up view of the near side. The lit region is drawn from the computed phase, so what you see is the geometry. The light now falls off toward the terminator, the edge between light and dark is soft, and the unlit side shows a faint earthshine, strongest near new moon.

WHAT IT DOESN'T DO

• Phases cover 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2050, and tides cover 2026 to 2030. Outside them, the app says so rather than guessing.
• It is a north-up diagram of the phase, not a picture of how the Moon looks in your sky tonight.
• It does not show libration, eclipses, moonrise or moonset.
• Phase times are geocentric, not for your location.

PRIVACY

Moon Lunation collects no data: no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising, no tracking and no account. The app makes no network requests of its own.

Phases, the calendar and the cycle never use your location. On iPhone and iPad, only after you allow it, Tides uses it to find the nearest tide station; the app does not save or send it. It keeps a small count of days used, on the device, to decide when to ask the system for a review. Tides remembers your place setting and up to five favourite stations, and Clear Saved Places removes them. On Mac, Tides does not use your location.

It works in Airplane Mode, on the first launch and every launch after.

iPhone, iPad and Mac. Requires iOS 17, iPadOS 17, or macOS 14 or later.

Lunar imagery courtesy of NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio. Tide predictions use NOAA data and Environment Agency tide gauge data (Open Government Licence v3.0). City names from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). None of these organisations endorses this app.