Moon

The Moon tool tells you when the Moon rises and sets, how much of it is lit, when it will be low in the twilight, which settings to use and when it will line up with your subject. It has five tabs: Night, Session, Direction, Month and Eclipse.

Place, date and equipment

• Place: by default, the phone’s GPS position. Tap it to search an address, enter coordinates or go back to your position with Here. Favourite places are shared by the Sun, Moon and Stars tools.
• Date: the arrows move to the previous or next day, Today goes back to the current day and tapping the date opens the calendar.
• Explore the night: a strip coloured by the light of the sky, with a band showing when the Moon is above the horizon. Drag it to pick a time.
• Equipment: the camera and lens shown at the top of the screen are used for the exposure and framing calculations.

Night tab

• The Moon that day: phase, share lit, age, moonrise, culmination and moonset times, and distance (with the supermoon or micromoon mention). A day without the Moon at night is shown as a dark night without Moon, ideal for the Milky Way.
• Position at the chosen time: elevation and azimuth.
• The next moment (moonrise, culmination, moonset…) with its Remind me reminder, 15 minutes before.
• Photo window: the time when the Moon is low on the horizon during the golden or blue hour, when Moon and landscape balance out. Show moves the strip to that time; Plan opens the Planner.
• Will the moonrise be visible? Once the option is on, a forecast tells you whether the horizon will be clear at the coming moonrises (from “clear horizon” to “blocked”), based on low, medium and high clouds and fog about 80 km toward the moonrise. It is indicative and needs a connection.
• Moments of the night: sunset, end of the blue hour, start of the dark night, moonrise, culmination and moonset, end of the dark night, sunrise.
• The Augmented reality and Planner buttons show the Moon’s path in the real scene or on a map.

Session tab

First choose what you are photographing:

• Lunar disc: the Moon alone, with a telephoto lens. The app gives the speed for the lunar disc, the size of the Moon in the frame (share of the width, size on the sensor, number of pixels) and the exposure time beyond which the Moon moves by one pixel without tracking.
• Moonlit landscape: a landscape lit by the Moon. The speed depends on the Moon’s phase and elevation; once the Moon has set, only starlight remains.
• Moon + landscape: Moon and landscape in a single exposure? The landscape darkens with the Sun while the Moon keeps the same brightness. The app works out the exposure gap between the two and recommends a single exposure, bracketing or two exposures to blend.

Set the focal length, aperture, ISO and weather (clear sky, light or heavy haze), which dims the moonlight. Absorption by the atmosphere, stronger when the Moon is low, is taken into account. When the shutter speed is longer than one second, a floating countdown button times the exposure.

Direction tab

When will the Moon be in line? Aim at a subject (tower, lighthouse, summit): the app finds the days in the next 12 months when the Moon rises or sets in that direction.

• Choose moonrise or moonset.
• Set the subject direction by hand or aim with the phone; Lock the aim freezes the direction. The tolerance widens or narrows the accepted gap.
• Filter the results: Moon illuminated at least a given percentage, and Light (golden or blue hour, night, or any).
• Terrain relief (real horizon) takes mountains and hills into account.
• The sky seen from above and compass views show the Moon’s path (solid line) and the subject direction (dashes).
• Tap a date to show it; the bell sets a reminder, Plan opens the Planner.

Month tab

The month calendar with each day’s phase. Tap a day to see its moonrise, culmination, moonset, distance and illumination. The Coming up section (next three months) lists full Moons, supermoons, full Moons rising at sunset and runs of moonless nights, with an optional reminder. The month day by day gives the same information as a table.

Eclipse tab

The next lunar eclipse visible from here (total or partial): share of the disc in the shadow, times of entering and leaving the shadow and of the maximum, duration of totality, Moon elevation, and whether the Moon rises or sets during the eclipse. The bell sets a reminder.

Set the aperture, ISO and weather: a table gives the speed for each phase, from full Moon to totality. During totality the Moon loses 10 to 15 EV: lengthen the exposure, raise the ISO and bracket widely.

The calculations use the lunar eclipse catalogue by F. Espenak and J. Meeus (NASA/GSFC).

Shooting tips

• Tripod and remote release (remote control or self-timer) prevent vibrations, especially with a telephoto lens.
• Focusing: manually, on the boundary between the lit and dark parts (the terminator), in magnified view. Autofocus is often fooled by the Moon.
• Detailed Moon: the Moon is a very bright object, lit by the Sun. Keep the exposure short: it moves by its own diameter in about two minutes. Avoid the full Moon, flat and without relief; a crescent or a quarter brings out the craters along the terminator.
• Orange Moon: photograph it right on the horizon, just after it rises.
• Moon and landscape: a low Moon in the blue hour naturally balances the two. Expose for the landscape and let the Moon be slightly overexposed, or take two exposures without moving the framing.