<p>The moon's phase never stops changing. It goes from full to new and back to full again over the course of a little under 30 days, about 60 times slower than the hour hand on an analog clock, so you can't just look at it and watch the phase change while you're standing there, if that's what you're imagining. But, if you go out every evening and look at the moon, you should see that it's a slightly different shape every night.</p>
<p>If you go out at a fairly consistent time every evening, you'll also probably notice that the moon is in a different place in the sky every night. At some points it might not be visible at all because moonrise is at 3am or something (but at least it should be visible the next morning).</p>
<p>In my experience, it's a little hard to tell the difference in shape when the moon is close to full, but give it a few nights and you'll see it shifting into waning gibbous, and when it's close to new, the shape difference is extremely visible from one night to the next.</p>
<p>By the way, if you're looking at the moon when it's close to new -- when it's a narrow crescent -- take a moment and see if you can make out the rest of the circle of the moon even though it's dark. The dark part of the moon is still a little lighter than the blackness of space because it's lit up just a little by &quot;earthshine&quot;, the light reflecting off the day-side of Earth!</p>
<p>A nice tool for tracking what the moon is doing is <a href="https://www.moongiant.com/phase/today/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.moongiant.com/phase/today/</a></p>
<p>It'll show you what tonight's moon should look like, and if you scroll down to the bottom, it shows a graphic of what time the moon should be rising (east), overhead, and setting (west).</p>
<p>The times are approximate, and your local times will vary depending on how far your local time is from the solar time. (Solar time is what time your clock would say if you set it to noon every day when the sun is as high as it gets, but that would mean every city has its own unique time that's a few minutes off from everyone else, so we use time zones so everyone in a big area means the same thing when they say &quot;5pm&quot; or whatever.) For most time zones, it's close enough, but there's a few places in the world where the time zone is pretty far out of sync with solar time, like western China or some parts of India, and it gets a little difficult during daylight savings time (called &quot;summer time&quot; in some places). Still, if you just want to walk outside and look at the moon, it's good enough.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-13T15:17:35.967Z
2024-12-13T15:51:52.607Z
2024-12-13T15:51:52.607Z
Darth Pseudonym
<p>The Moon is visible from almost every spot on Earth at some time every day when the sky is clear, and its phase will be easy to tell. The phase is virtually the same regardless of where on Earth you're watching. It takes a month for the Moon to go through its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_phase" rel="nofollow noreferrer">phases</a>.</p>
<p>To find the time the Moon is above the horizon at your location, use a service such as <a href="https://heavens-above.com/moon.aspx?lat=0&amp;lng=0&amp;loc=Unspecified" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Heavens Above</a> (set your observing location using the link at the top right.)</p>
<p>Currently (December 2024) the only places on Earth where the Moon cannot be observed are near the South Pole.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-13T14:55:47.243Z
2024-12-13T15:01:38.953Z
2024-12-13T15:01:38.953Z
doubleunary
<p>I interpret &quot;real time&quot; as in you want to observe the moon with your eyeballs and feel like the scene you are looking at is changing while you look at it.  This is a bit of an informal line in the sand, but we can see if we can quantify it.</p>
<p>The moon's phase changes 360 degrees every 28 days.  That's 12.8 degrees per day, or .000148 degrees per second.  Since we're going to be going between angles and lengths, it's convenient to switch from degrees to radians: 2.6 μrad/sec.</p>
<p>The thing you or I would observe for the phases would be the shadow creeping across the surface.  The moon's radius is 1737.4 km.  I'm going to write that as 1.7374Mm.  Megameters is an unusual unit, but Mega (M) times micro (μ) cancels out perfectly.  The shadow creeps at 2.6 μrad/sec * 1.7374Mm = 4.5 m/s.</p>
<p>This is a very small speed.  To give a sense of scale, the leave-behind part of the Apollo lunar landings is about 10m wide, so the shadow will cross the lander in about 2 seconds.  Someone on Quora has already <a href="https://www.quora.com/Theoretically-how-big-of-a-telescope-do-you-need-to-see-Apollo-lunar-modules-on-the-Moon" rel="nofollow noreferrer">done the math</a> for me: you need a 25m telescope to see the lunar lander as a single pixel in a picture.  For a sense of reference, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Magellan_Telescope" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Giant Magellan Telescope</a> is planned to be a 25m telescope, and will be the largest in the world.</p>
<p>So practically speaking, you will not observe the moon's phases in real time.  You will have to take an observation, wait a while, then make a second observation and compare them.  Or you can become an astronomer and try to get time on the Giant Magellan Telescope when it is commissioned in 2030.</p>
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/o5pPSFA4.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/o5pPSFA4.jpg" alt="Rendering" /></a><br />
<em>A rendering of the Giant Magellan Telescope</em></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-13T15:55:29.203Z
2024-12-13T15:55:29.203Z
Cort Ammon
<p>I am in school and I'm studying about moon phases so I wonder if I can actually see moon phases in actual real time so if any one can answer my question the would be great. can I see moon phases from where I am why or why not.?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-13T14:38:41.580Z
Your question is confusing. Haven't you noticed the different phases when you look at the Moon at different times?
PM 2Ring
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-13T20:21:34.650Z
I've voted to close.  This question is so basic, and lacks even the most minimal of prior research, that it is likely to attract responses that are not useful.
James K
<the-moon><moon-phases>
can I see moon phases
Chanel Henry
# can I see moon phases

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-12-13)

I am in school and I'm studying about moon phases so I wonder if I can actually see moon phases in actual real time so if any one can answer my question the would be great. can I see moon phases from where I am why or why not.?

**Tags:** the-moon, moon-phases

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Your question is confusing. Haven't you noticed the different phases when you look at the Moon at different times?  
> **username_2**: I've voted to close.  This question is so basic, and lacks even the most minimal of prior research, that it is likely to attract responses that are not useful.  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2024-12-13. Score: 4

The moon's phase never stops changing. It goes from full to new and back to full again over the course of a little under 30 days, about 60 times slower than the hour hand on an analog clock, so you can't just look at it and watch the phase change while you're standing there, if that's what you're imagining. But, if you go out every evening and look at the moon, you should see that it's a slightly different shape every night.

If you go out at a fairly consistent time every evening, you'll also probably notice that the moon is in a different place in the sky every night. At some points it might not be visible at all because moonrise is at 3am or something (but at least it should be visible the next morning).

In my experience, it's a little hard to tell the difference in shape when the moon is close to full, but give it a few nights and you'll see it shifting into waning gibbous, and when it's close to new, the shape difference is extremely visible from one night to the next.

By the way, if you're looking at the moon when it's close to new -- when it's a narrow crescent -- take a moment and see if you can make out the rest of the circle of the moon even though it's dark. The dark part of the moon is still a little lighter than the blackness of space because it's lit up just a little by "earthshine", the light reflecting off the day-side of Earth!

A nice tool for tracking what the moon is doing is <https://www.moongiant.com/phase/today/>

It'll show you what tonight's moon should look like, and if you scroll down to the bottom, it shows a graphic of what time the moon should be rising (east), overhead, and setting (west).

The times are approximate, and your local times will vary depending on how far your local time is from the solar time. (Solar time is what time your clock would say if you set it to noon every day when the sun is as high as it gets, but that would mean every city has its own unique time that's a few minutes off from everyone else, so we use time zones so everyone in a big area means the same thing when they say "5pm" or whatever.) For most time zones, it's close enough, but there's a few places in the world where the time zone is pretty far out of sync with solar time, like western China or some parts of India, and it gets a little difficult during daylight savings time (called "summer time" in some places). Still, if you just want to walk outside and look at the moon, it's good enough.


---

### Answer by username_4 on 2024-12-13. Score: 2

The Moon is visible from almost every spot on Earth at some time every day when the sky is clear, and its phase will be easy to tell. The phase is virtually the same regardless of where on Earth you're watching. It takes a month for the Moon to go through its [phases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_phase).

To find the time the Moon is above the horizon at your location, use a service such as [Heavens Above](https://heavens-above.com/moon.aspx?lat=0&lng=0&loc=Unspecified) (set your observing location using the link at the top right.)

Currently (December 2024) the only places on Earth where the Moon cannot be observed are near the South Pole.


---

### Answer by username_5 on 2024-12-13. Score: 1

I interpret "real time" as in you want to observe the moon with your eyeballs and feel like the scene you are looking at is changing while you look at it. This is a bit of an informal line in the sand, but we can see if we can quantify it.

The moon's phase changes 360 degrees every 28 days. That's 12.8 degrees per day, or .000148 degrees per second. Since we're going to be going between angles and lengths, it's convenient to switch from degrees to radians: 2.6 μrad/sec.

The thing you or I would observe for the phases would be the shadow creeping across the surface. The moon's radius is 1737.4 km. I'm going to write that as 1.7374Mm. Megameters is an unusual unit, but Mega (M) times micro (μ) cancels out perfectly. The shadow creeps at 2.6 μrad/sec \* 1.7374Mm = 4.5 m/s.

This is a very small speed. To give a sense of scale, the leave-behind part of the Apollo lunar landings is about 10m wide, so the shadow will cross the lander in about 2 seconds. Someone on Quora has already [done the math](https://www.quora.com/Theoretically-how-big-of-a-telescope-do-you-need-to-see-Apollo-lunar-modules-on-the-Moon) for me: you need a 25m telescope to see the lunar lander as a single pixel in a picture. For a sense of reference, the [Giant Magellan Telescope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Magellan_Telescope) is planned to be a 25m telescope, and will be the largest in the world.

So practically speaking, you will not observe the moon's phases in real time. You will have to take an observation, wait a while, then make a second observation and compare them. Or you can become an astronomer and try to get time on the Giant Magellan Telescope when it is commissioned in 2030.

[![Rendering](https://i.sstatic.net/o5pPSFA4.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/o5pPSFA4.jpg)  
*A rendering of the Giant Magellan Telescope*


---

