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How to Check Moon Phases

The Moon is a source of timeless fascination for people from all walks of life. As it circles around Earth, the illuminated area that people can see changes and seems to increase or decrease. These changes are marked on lunar calendars as the moon phases. The Moon takes about 28 days to complete a cycle. The unit of time known as a "month" came from this lunar cycle.

Instructions

- 1
  Browse the Old Farmer's Almanac website and click "Moon" on the navigation bar. The link will take you to a page with all kinds of information about the Moon such as the current moon phase, lunar calendars, moon rise and set times, lunar eclipses and full moon dates spanning many years. The Almanac also provides lunar folklore, tide prediction, fishing dates and an astrological timing table for people who synchronize their activities with the Moon.
- 2
  Add a lunar calendar to your personal homepage. If you have an iGoogle account set up, go to "Add Stuff" and search for "moon phase." Pick a moon-watching gadget, say "Current Moon Phase" from CalculatorCat.com and add it to your iGoogle page. The gadget will display the current lunar phase along with other details such as date and time.
- 3
  Visit the NASA Eclipse website and click "Moon Phases" on the top menu. The page will display tables of moon phases for a 25-year range that includes the current year. The tables list the dates for each moon phase for each month in the years covered. The tables can be adjusted to six different time zones. In addition, the tables also track lunar eclipses. To see moon phases in other periods, scroll down the page and click either the one-hundred-year "Phases of the Moon" tables for the 20th and 21st centuries or the "Six Millennium Catalog."

Astronomy