Custom moon phase print: the Moon on your date
Pick a day and a town: the Moon as it was that night, worked out here for free. Then frame it, NASA's Moon at its true phase, with your names and words.
February 14, 2027, over New York City: a first quarter Moon, 57% lit and 8 days old. It set at 1:11 AM and rose at 10:29 AM.
All five print sizes, as PDFs a few minutes after you pay.
Any day from 1900 to 2100 230,000 towns and cities
How it works
- Make it herePick the day, the place, a design and your words. The preview is drawn by the same code that makes your files: only the word "Preview" comes off.
- Pay onceBy card or Link through Stripe, tax included, with no account. Your day, place and words are deleted once the files are made.
- Print it and frame itFive PDFs a few minutes later, on a page whose link works for 30 days. A typo or the wrong day? Remake it free, once, within 30 days.
Five sizes in every purchase
Each a print-ready PDF. Print Letter or A4 at home on heavy matte paper, take 8 × 10 or 11 × 14 to any photo counter, and the 18 × 24 in poster to a print shop.
Each fits a ready-made frame of its size. To hang it with a white mat, buy a frame a size up with a mat cut for yours: an 11 × 14 frame matted for 8 × 10, or 16 × 20 matted for 11 × 14.
- 18 × 24 in 46 × 61 cm Print shop
- 11 × 14 in 28 × 36 cm Photo counter
- Letter 21.6 × 27.9 cm Home printer
- A4 21 × 29.7 cm Home printer
- 8 × 10 in 20 × 25 cm Photo counter
Two designs, each in four colours
Shown on Letter, for February 14, 2027 over New York City
The Moon
The Moon alone, as a gallery photograph: NASA's Moon lit to the phase it showed and turned the way it hung in your sky, over the stars around it, with a museum label of its facts.
The Moon's month
Your Moon at the centre, and around it every night of its month, from new Moon to new Moon: each one NASA's Moon at its phase that evening, with its date, and yours marked in gold.
The Moon as it really was
Nothing on it is made up. The Moon is NASA's, from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's maps of its colour and its heights, lit to the phase it showed at your minute: the crescent as thin, the shadows in the craters as long. It's turned the way it stood over your town, which is why a crescent tilts, and south of the equator it's the other way up. Even its slight nod toward us that night, the libration, is in the picture.
Phases and times come from Astronomy Engine, which agrees with the US Naval Observatory to within a minute, on your place's own clock that day. The preview above is drawn by the same code that makes your files: only the word "Preview" comes off.
Questions
What was the Moon on my birthday?
Put in the day and the town you were born in, and the time if you know it: the answer shows at the top of the page, free, with the Moon drawn in its frame. The print is only if you want it on the wall.
Why does my Moon lean?
Because it did. The Moon's lit side faces the Sun, and how that looks from the ground depends on where you stand and the hour: a crescent can lie on its back in the tropics and stand upright in the north. Each Moon is drawn as it looked from your place.
What if the Moon wasn't up that night?
It still had a phase, and that's what the print shows: the Moon as it was, wherever it stood. A new Moon is drawn as the faint ring of its edge, because that's all there was to see.
Can I put several dates on one print?
Yes: the family print holds two to six Moons, each with its own day, place and name, all for one price.
Can I give it as a gift?
Yes. The files are yours to print and give, and there's no shipping, so it works the night before as well as a month ahead.
What if something's wrong?
A typo or the wrong day: remake it free, once, within 30 days, from your files' page. A file that's wrong or won't open is fixed or refunded within 60 days. A change of mind isn't refunded once the files are made (terms).