Moonrise Photo Planning Apps: Catch the 26 October 2026 Full Moon

The October full moon peaks at 04:12 UTC on Monday 26 October 2026, and in London it rises at 16:01 GMT on Sunday 25 October, 16:21 on the 26th and 16:47 on the 27th. That gives you three usable moonrise evenings, each with a different mix of daylight and dark sky. To photograph one, you need two numbers for your own location: the time the moon clears your horizon and the compass direction it rises from. A free table gives you both. A planning app such as PhotoPills, Sun Surveyor or The Photographer's Ephemeris earns its place when you want the moon lined up behind a particular landmark.

When the full moon rises in London, 25 to 27 October 2026

The UK clocks go back at 02:00 BST on Sunday 25 October, so every time below is GMT. Rise times are for a flat horizon; buildings and hills hide the moon for longer, so the column that matters most is when it reaches 5° above the horizon, roughly the height of a low skyline seen from a park. Directions are compass bearings: 90° is due east, smaller numbers are further north.

Sunset, moonrise and direction are from the US Naval Observatory for central London; the 5° times are calculated and agree with USNO's moon position to within 0.1°. Notice how little the moonrise moves: 20 minutes later on the 26th, 26 minutes on the 27th. Around this time of year the moon's path meets the horizon at a shallow angle at northern latitudes, so the full moon rises at a similar time several evenings running. In Sydney the same moon rises 73 minutes later from the 26th to the 27th, so you get one good evening there, not three.

Which evening to pick

Sunday 25 October is the one for a lit foreground. The moon is 99% illuminated and clears 5° at 16:41, the moment the sun touches the western horizon. Buildings facing west still catch the last light, and the moon is not yet so bright against the sky that your phone has to choose between them. This is the evening to try for detail in both.

Monday 26 October is the true full moon and the middle ground: the moon is clear of a low skyline at about 17:03, in dusk, with the sky still blue rather than black.

Tuesday 27 October suits city lights. By 17:34 the sun is 8.5° down, windows and street lights are on, and the moon is 97% lit. The buildings will be silhouettes or a pattern of lights, which is fine if that is the picture you want.

The direction matters as much as the time. The moon rises about 9° further north each evening (67°, 58°, 50°), which is roughly 17 moon-widths. If you pick a viewpoint for an alignment on the 25th, it will not line up on the 27th. Choose the evening first, then the spot. For New Yorkers, Sunday 25 October is also the pick: moonrise is 17:26 EDT and sunset 18:01, while on the 26th the two happen two minutes apart. The US clocks do not change until 1 November.

Moon-planning apps compared: what each one is for

All three specialist apps answer the same question (where and when will the moon be?) but they suit different people. None of the feature notes below comes from a hands-on test; they come from each developer's own description.

PhotoPills is the one to buy if you are going to chase alignments regularly. Its developer describes a map-centred planner for the sun, moon and Milky Way and 3D augmented-reality views showing whether they will sit where you want. The learning curve is real; give yourself an evening with it before the night you need it.

Sun Surveyor is the quicker one to use in the field. Its Live View puts the sun and moon paths over the camera image, so you can stand in a park, point the phone at the gap between two buildings and see whether the moon will come up there.

TPE is the best fit if you like to plan on a big screen. The web version draws sun and moon direction lines on a map, and the iPhone app adds an augmented-reality view. Its developer's site does not list an Android app.

LightScout, the app behind this report, solves a different part of the problem. It suggests vantage points for a chosen place and gives calculated golden-hour, blue-hour, sunrise and sunset windows. For the moon itself, use the table above or one of the three apps.

The free check: do you need an app at all?

For one evening, no. The US Naval Observatory's free one-day rise and set table gives sunset, moonrise and the moon's phase for any coordinates. Pair the moonrise direction with the compass on your phone, stand where you plan to shoot, and point it along that bearing: if the moon will come up behind a tree you can see, move. The figures in the table above came from that service.

An app becomes worth paying for when the shot depends on the moon touching a specific spire or bridge, because then a degree of direction and a few minutes of time decide whether it works. That is exactly the calculation PhotoPills and Sun Surveyor do for you.

How to make the moon look big next to a landmark

The full moon on 26 October is about 0.54° across. That never changes with your lens; what changes is how big the landmark looks next to it. Stand further away and zoom in. A 100 m building is about 5.7° tall from 1 km away, about ten times the moon's height, so the moon looks tiny beside it. From 5 km it is about 1.1°, twice the moon. From 10 km the two are roughly the same height, which is the effect in the photos that make people ask whether the moon was edited in.

Distance also raises the horizon problem. From far away, the moon has to clear everything between you and the landmark, which is why the 5° column in the table matters more than the official rise time. A high viewpoint helps. If you are shooting in London, the river bridges in the London guide are a closer, simpler option: Tower Bridge and St Paul's both work as foreground subjects when the moon is a small accent rather than a giant disc.

If you only have your phone

• Use the longest built-in lens (2x, 3x or 5x, depending on the model), not digital zoom beyond it. Brace the phone on a wall or railing.
• Tap the moon, then drag the brightness slider down until you can see its surface. On an iPhone you can touch and hold until AE/AF Lock appears, which keeps that setting while you wait for the moon to rise into the gap.
• Shoot early in the window. On the 25th and 26th the sky is still bright enough that the moon and the buildings can both hold detail. Later, the phone has to choose, and it usually turns the moon into a white disc.
• Night mode works against you on the moon itself, because it is built to brighten dark scenes. Keep it for the 27th, when you are photographing city lights with the moon as a small accent. The night camera apps guide covers the settings.

Miss this one and the next full moon is on 24 November; the November calendar explains what that moon does to aurora trips. For the evening light itself, the golden hour guide covers what happens to colour as the sun sets.