Moonshot
LiveMoonrise time & where to look
On the App Store as “Moonshot: Moon Phase Planner”
See it run.
About twenty-five seconds of Moonshot doing its job, recorded straight off the phone. No captions, no voice-over, nothing staged — the same clip the App Store shows.
Watch on YouTubeFree web tool
How do you calculate the Moon's phase for a given date?
Compute the Moon's ecliptic longitude and the Sun's ecliptic longitude for that moment, then take the elongation — the Moon's longitude minus the Sun's, wrapped to 0–360°. That single angle names the phase in eight equal 45° windows: 0° is a new moon, 90° first quarter, 180° full, 270° last quarter, and the odd multiples of 45° are the crescents and gibbous phases in between. The illuminated fraction is (1 − cos ψ) ÷ 2, where ψ is the phase angle, so it runs from 0% at new to 100% at full; the Moon's age in days is the elongation ÷ 360 × 29.53 (one synodic month). To find the next new or full moon, step forward in time and look for the instant the elongation crosses 0° or 180°.
Pick a date to see the Moon’s phase, illumination and age.
Computed for local midday on the selected date with the app’s Meeus-based ephemeris (illumination accurate to ~1%). New- and full-moon times are shown in your own time zone. Same computed engine as the app.
Take it with you
The full Moonshot app adds moonrise and moonset times and compass bearings for your exact location, a plain Great / Good / Skip verdict that flags the nights the moon rises during blue hour or before sunset, a starting exposure from the Looney 11 rule adjusted for phase, how big the moon will be in your frame at your focal length, a map planner that draws tonight's rise and set lines from where you'll stand, and a reminder before moonrise — every number computed on your device, bought once.
What it is
A moon planner for photographers. One card shows tonight's moonrise and moonset times, phase and illumination, the bearing of rise and set, how high it climbs, and a plain verdict: Great, Good or Skip. It says so on the nights the moon comes up during blue hour or before sunset — those are the nights. Then it gives you a starting exposure from the Looney 11 rule adjusted for phase, how big the moon will be in your frame at 100 to 600 mm, and a map planner that draws tonight's rise and set lines from where you'll stand. Check any date to plan a shoot weeks ahead.
Why we built it
Photographers don't want astronomy homework; they want one glanceable answer about whether tonight's moon is worth shooting and where to point. General astronomy apps bury that under charts and options. This does the single job, moon-for-photographers, and computes every number on-device, so the answer is there on a summit with no signal.
Want one like this?
Moonshot is one of 20. We can build yours.
Every app on the shelf started as one honest problem, scoped small and built native, end to end. That’s exactly how we approach client work — designed, built and shipped, without the bloat.
