PHASES OF THE MOON

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On this page, there’s a neat little graphic which shows the exact phase of the moon for
wherever your computer is at the time. Useful if you want to work with the moon’s phases
for gardening, or casting spells or creating charms etc.

It comes from a site called CalculatorCat. You can find a link to them just below the
graphic.

For your information, I have included a brief explanation of the phases of the moon here,
but you can find a much more detailed one on the Calculator Cat site. And, of course,
there are many other sites out there with moon-based details on them.

Phases of The Moon
On average the moon circles the earth in 27 days 7 hours 43 minutes. The sun always
illuminates the half of the moon facing it, except during lunar eclipses, when the moon
passes through the earth's shadow. When the sun and the moon are on opposite sides of
the earth, the moon is bright and round. This is called a ‘full moon’. When the moon is
between the earth and the sun, it appears dark. We call this a ‘new moon’.

New moon – Occurs when the moon is roughly in the same direction as the sun, its
illuminated half is facing away from the earth, and the part that faces us is all dark.

Waxing crescent moon – A waxing crescent moon occurs as the moon moves around the
earth and we can see more of the illuminated half. It shows itself as just a sliver at first and
the sliver grows as days go by.

First quarter moon - A week after the new moon, when the moon has completed about a
quarter of its turn around the earth, we are able to see half of the illuminated part; that is,
a quarter of the moon.

Waxing gibbous moon - During the next week, we see more and more of the illuminated part
of the moon, and it is now called waxing gibbous (humped) moon.

Full moon - Two weeks after the new moon, the moon is now halfway through its revolution,
and now the illuminated half coincides with the one facing the earth, so that we can see a full
disk.

Waning gibbous moon - From now on, until it becomes new again, the illuminated part of
the moon that we can see grows smaller, and we say it's waning. The first week after the
moon is full, it is called a waning gibbous moon.

Third or Last quarter moon - Three weeks after new moon, we again can see half of the
illuminated part. This is usually called last quarter.

Waning crescent moon - Finally, during the fourth week, the moon is reduced to a thin
sliver again.

After four weeks the illuminated half of the moon faces away from us again and we come
back to the beginning of the cycle with a new moon.