Te Marama — Moon Atlas

zenith ↑

−15 d +15 d

Observer location Preset

Latitude Longitude (east +)

Illuminated

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Moon age

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Distance

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Angular size

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Position now

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Moonrise

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Moonset

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Next new moon

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Next full moon

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Libration

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Two honest footnotes. 1) All clock times (moonrise, moonset, next full moon) are shown in the time zone this device is set to — if you pick London as the observer but your iPad is on NZ time, you'll see NZ clock times for London's events. 2) With "True libration view" off, the disc is the Moon's average face; the slow wobble that shifts features near the edge is shown only in the Libration readout. Switch it on and the image is re-projected for the actual date, wobble and all.

What is libration?

The Moon is tidally locked, so it always shows us roughly the same face — but not exactly the same face. It appears to rock slowly east–west and nod north–south, so over a month the edges shift and we eventually get to see about 59% of the surface. Two causes:

Turns on true libration, sets north-up, and plays a day per second — watch Mare Crisium slide towards and away from the edge.

Sequence

Moon discs

Each disc is drawn as the Moon appears highest in your evening sky — from Aotearoa that's the inverted view compared with northern almanacs.

This lunation

Kupu — key terms

What this is

An interactive Moon atlas: both hemispheres with IAU-named features, every spacecraft landing and impact site (crewed, robotic, deliberate and accidental), a layer of key scientific discoveries, an accurate simulator of how the Moon looks from your sky — built in Aotearoa, so the southern hemisphere view is a first-class citizen — and the maramataka, presented with proper attribution.

Scientific accuracy

Lunar and solar positions are computed from truncated series in Jean Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms (2nd ed., 1998) — accurate to well under an arcminute, far beyond what the rendering needs.
The disc orientation uses the parallactic angle and the position angle of the Moon's axis, so the Moon appears as it truly does from your location — from New Zealand, roughly "upside down" relative to northern-hemisphere imagery.
Landing/impact coordinates were compiled and cross-checked against NASA NSSDCA and LROC sources; entries flagged "location approximate" are best published estimates.
Feature names, positions and diameters follow the IAU Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature — the full export is loaded, so zooming in eventually reveals every named crater including the lettered satellite craters (8,700+).
The Chart view is hillshaded relief computed from the LOLA laser-altimeter elevation model (3× vertical exaggeration, north-west illumination) — a drawn-chart look derived from real topography, not an artistic impression.
Optical libration can be rendered for real: "True libration view" re-projects the disc from the full-globe map onto the actual sub-Earth point for the chosen date. With it off, the disc is the Moon's mean face.
Known simplifications: physical libration ignored (~0.03°), ΔT fixed at 69 s, rise/set via 5-minute grid interpolation (±1–2 min).

The maramataka

The maramataka is the Māori lunar calendar — a system of named nights guiding fishing, planting and activity. It is observational and differs between iwi and rohe; there is no single universal version. This app presents published sequences with their attribution shown, and maps them to astronomical nights using a stated convention. Te reo Māori content in the maramataka view comes from the cited sources. Before any classroom use, have the reo and tikanga checked by a fluent speaker / mana whenua.

Credits & sources

Moon imagery: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio (CGI Moon Kit, svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4720). Colour map from the LROC WAC mosaic; elevation from LOLA.
Mission data: NASA NSSDCA master catalogue; LROC; agency sources (NASA, Roscosmos historical records, CNSA, ISRO, JAXA, ispace, Intuitive Machines, Firefly).
Nomenclature: IAU Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature (USGS Astrogeology).
Maramataka: sources cited per sequence in the Maramataka tab.
Full source notes live in the project's docs/ folder.