Moon phases in May 2026
The Moon is full on 1 May (the Flower Moon), at last quarter on 9 May, new on 16 May, at first quarter on 23 May and full on 31 May (the Blue Moon).
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 May: Full Moon at 17:24, 100% lit | 2 May: Waning gibbous, 99% lit | 3 May: Waning gibbous, 97% lit | ||||
| 4 May: Waning gibbous, 93% lit | 5 May: Waning gibbous, 87% lit | 6 May: Waning gibbous, 81% lit | 7 May: Waning gibbous, 73% lit | 8 May: Waning gibbous, 64% lit | 9 May: Last quarter at 21:11, 54% lit | 10 May: Waning crescent, 44% lit |
| 11 May: Waning crescent, 34% lit | 12 May: Waning crescent, 24% lit | 13 May: Waning crescent, 15% lit | 14 May: Waning crescent, 8% lit | 15 May: Waning crescent, 3% lit | 16 May: New Moon at 20:02, 0% lit | 17 May: Waxing crescent, 1% lit |
| 18 May: Waxing crescent, 4% lit | 19 May: Waxing crescent, 11% lit | 20 May: Waxing crescent, 19% lit | 21 May: Waxing crescent, 29% lit | 22 May: Waxing crescent, 40% lit | 23 May: First quarter at 11:12, 50% lit | 24 May: Waxing gibbous, 61% lit |
| 25 May: Waxing gibbous, 71% lit | 26 May: Waxing gibbous, 79% lit | 27 May: Waxing gibbous, 87% lit | 28 May: Waxing gibbous, 93% lit | 29 May: Waxing gibbous, 97% lit | 30 May: Waxing gibbous, 99% lit | 31 May: Full Moon at 08:46, 100% lit |
The main phases in May 2026
- Full Moon: Flower Moon Fri 1 May 2026 17:24 UTC Your time: 17:24 UTC
- Last quarter Sat 9 May 2026 21:11 UTC Your time: 21:11 UTC
- New Moon Sat 16 May 2026 20:02 UTC Your time: 20:02 UTC
- First quarter Sat 23 May 2026 11:12 UTC Your time: 11:12 UTC
- Full Moon: Blue Moon Sun 31 May 2026 08:46 UTC Your time: 08:46 UTC Blue Moon (second in the month)
To the nearest minute. Our times agree with the US Naval Observatory's to within a minute and a half for every phase from 2026 to 2028. The Moon right now, live.
The full Moons
The full Moon of Friday 1 May 2026 at 17:24 UTC is the Flower Moon in the Old Farmer's Almanac's list. It is 402,004 km from Earth, near apogee, the far point of its orbit, so it is not a supermoon.
The full Moon of Sunday 31 May 2026 at 08:46 UTC is the second of May, which the Old Farmer's Almanac and NASA call a Blue Moon. It is 406,135 km from Earth, near apogee, the far point of its orbit, so it is not a supermoon.
Every full Moon of 2026, with its name, is on full Moons in 2026.
Get the night of the Flower Moon as a print: the sky over your own town that night, on a star map.
Get the Moon from your date as a print: the Moon as it looked on a day that matters to you.
See the night sky on any date, free: the stars, the planets and the Moon over any town.
Questions
When is the full Moon in May 2026?
There are two: Friday 1 May 2026 at 17:24 UTC, the Flower Moon, and Sunday 31 May 2026 at 08:46 UTC, the Blue Moon.
When is the new Moon in May 2026?
Saturday 16 May 2026 at 20:02 UTC.
Is there a supermoon in May 2026?
The full Moon of 1 May 2026 is 402,004 km from Earth, near apogee, the far point of its orbit, so it is not a supermoon. The full Moon of 31 May 2026 is 406,135 km from Earth, near apogee, the far point of its orbit, so it is not a supermoon.
Why are the times in UTC?
Each phase happens at one moment for the whole world, and UTC is the clock everyone can convert from. With JavaScript on, this page also shows every time and the whole calendar in your own time zone, so a phase near midnight lands on your own date.
Sources
- US Naval Observatory: Phases of the Moon. Our times are checked against USNO's for every phase from 2026 to 2028 and agree to within a minute and a half
- US Naval Observatory: Phases of the Moon and percent of the Moon illuminated (how the phases, the percent lit and the Moon's age are defined)
- Fred Espenak, AstroPixels: Full Moon at Perigee (full supermoons), 2001 to 2100, and the test for one
- NASA Science: Supermoons
- The Old Farmer's Almanac: Full Moon names
- The Old Farmer's Almanac: the Hunter's Moon, the full Moon after the Harvest Moon
- NASA Watch the Skies: the monthly and seasonal blue moon
- NASA Eclipse Web Site (Espenak): eclipse dates
- Jean Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms (2nd edition, 1998): chapter 47, the lunar theory behind the Moon's place, phase and distance; chapter 48, the lit fraction and the bright limb; chapter 25, the Sun's aberration
- IAU Office of Astronomy for Education: the lunar phases seen from the Southern Hemisphere
- NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, CGI Moon Kit (Ernie Wright, Noah Petro, 2019): the Moon's colour from the LROC Wide Angle Camera's Hapke-normalised mosaic, the face every Moon on these pages is drawn from
- LRO Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, LDEM_64 heights (NASA PDS Geosciences Node): the slopes that shade the ground near the terminator
- Archinal et al. (2011), Report of the IAU Working Group on Cartographic Coordinates and Rotational Elements: 2009, Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy 109, 101: the Moon's pole and turning, so the drawn face shows the libration of the moment
- NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, Moon Phase and Libration, 2026: what libration and the position angle of the axis are, and the frames we compared our drawing with
- NASA JPL Horizons: the Moon's sub-Earth point and pole angle, which our drawing matches to within 0.01 degrees on the dates we test
- Krisciunas and Schaefer (1991), A model of the brightness of moonlight, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 103, 1033: the Moon's brightness through its phases, which sets the earthshine against the sunlit side
- NASA Earth fact sheet: the Earth's radius and geometric albedo, for the earthshine
- The phases, distances and dates on this page are worked out by our own code from the sources above, the same lunar theory that places the Moon in the 3D viewer. The Moons are drawn by our own renderer from NASA's maps.