Sun and Moon Observational Data

Sun

Earth

Moon

NASA Sun Image
Today's Sun image from  Goddard Space Center
Current Sunlit Earth With Live Cloud Cover USNO Moon Image
Today's Moon illumination from Naval Observatory
Sunrise: 07:36
Sunset: 17:03
Daylight: 09:27
Current Sunlit Earth
With Live Cloud Cover
Moonrise: 14:39
Moonset: 05:42
Waxing Gibbous Moon
91% Illuminated


First Quarter Moon Full Moon Last Quarter Moon New Moon
First Quarter Moon Full Moon Last Quarter Moon New Moon
31/01/2012 04:10
04:10 UTC 31 January 2012
07/02/2012 21:54
21:54 UTC 7 February 2012
14/02/2012 17:04
17:04 UTC 14 February 2012
21/02/2012 22:35
22:35 UTC 21 February 2012


Vernal Equinox
Start of Spring
Summer Solstice
Start of Summer
Autumn Equinox
Start of Fall
Winter Solstice
Start of Winter
Start of Spring First day of Summer First day of Fall First day of Winter
20/03/2012 05:15
05:15 UTC 20 March 2012
21/06/2012 00:09
23:09 UTC 20 June 2012
22/09/2012 15:50
14:50 UTC 22 September 2012
21/12/2012 11:12
11:12 UTC 21 December 2012

  Moon Details from Weather-Display

Additional Moon facts from Weather-Display


Current Position of Day and Night Regions - World Sunlight Map

The World Sunlight Map provides a computer-generated approximation of what the earth currently looks like.
While less impressive than actually being into orbit, this is much more accessible to most of us.

We start with cloudless images of the earth during the day (from a pair of NASA satellites) and night (from a DoD program to map city lights). Every 3 hours, we download a composite cloud image based on data from weather satellites all over the world. And every half hour, these images are composited and mapped onto a sphere by xplanet according to the relative position of the sun. The flat maps are post-processed by ImageMagick to cut off the 15 degrees nearest the north and south poles where cloud data is unavailable.

Composite Image of the Moon - Current Phase Map

Moon Phase provides a computer-generated approximation of what the moon currently looks like.
While less impressive than the real thing, it doesn't require waiting for a cloudless night.

It is based on a composite image of the moon made up of data from various satellites. Every hour, this image is mapped onto a sphere and shaded by xplanet according to the current positions of the earth and moon, then post-processed by ImageMagick to remove some visible artifacts.