The actual Moon,
tonight.
Lunaria is the real Moon on your desk — not a moon lamp. The phase is tonight's true phase, the craters stand in relief along the real terminator, the face rocks and nods with the Moon's libration, and when the Earth's shadow falls across the Moon, it falls across Lunaria too. Every frame is computed on the device, from reality.
It is not a moon lamp
Every moon lamp on Earth is a painted fake. Lunaria shows the Moon that is in the sky right now. Its position comes from the same lunar theory observatories use, computed on the device and checked against NASA's JPL Horizons to 12 arcseconds across 1900–2099. Watch it in real time, or run a time-lapse and see a month of phases pass in minutes.
Craters that cast the light
Lunaria carries the Moon's real terrain, measured by NASA's laser altimeter in lunar orbit, and lights every slope with the Sun of this moment. Along the terminator crater rims catch the dawn while their floors stay dark. That's the view through a telescope tonight, not a photograph's fixed lighting.
The whole face, correct
Mare Imbrium, Copernicus, Tycho's rays: the near side is mapped from spacecraft data, its maria and highlands in their true brightness. Under a high Sun the relief flattens and the rays blaze, just as the real full Moon does.
Every lunar eclipse
When the Earth's shadow crosses the real Moon, it crosses Lunaria. The penumbra dims it, the umbra bites in with a crisp edge, and totality glows copper, lit by every sunrise and sunset on Earth at once. Lunaria predicts them itself. It finds every one of NASA's 457 catalogued lunar eclipses from 1901 to 2100, and times each within seconds of NASA's figures.
It tells you it's coming
Weeks ahead, an eclipse card counts down the days and gives the partial and total phases in your local time. It also says whether the Moon will be up where you are to see it. While the eclipse is on, the card says so.
Totality, in copper
The shadow is drawn from the geometry of the moment: where the umbra and penumbra fall on the Moon's surface, and how much sunlight gets past the Earth's edge. Keepsake nights land on eclipses too.
An almanac of the Moon
Every hour, or as often as you like, Lunaria turns to a few quiet cards and then back to the Moon. It shows what the Moon is doing tonight, what's coming, and what to look for. Everything on them is computed on the device and checked against the US Naval Observatory, JPL and NOAA.
The Moon's real wobble
The Moon doesn't show us a perfectly fixed face. It rocks side to side and nods up and down — libration — so over a month you see about 59% of its surface. Lunaria computes the Moon's real orientation, so the face tilts the way the real Moon tilts. Here are two full Moons, months apart:
Supermoon, for real
The Moon's orbit isn't a circle, so its distance and its size in the sky change all month. At perigee it's about 14% wider than at apogee. Lunaria's disc breathes with the true distance, so a supermoon actually looks like one. Here are the nearest and farthest full Moons of the year:
The Moon of a night that mattered
A gift that stays true
Give Lunaria the nights that matter: a birth, a wedding, a first date. It knows the Moon of each one exactly: its phase, its tilt, how full it was. Freeze the display on one, with a line engraved beneath it, or keep Lunaria live and let the keepsake card bring each night back, counting down to its anniversary and saying "ten years ago tonight" when it comes.
It even knows when that same Moon will return on that same date, usually nineteen years on: the Metonic cycle the ancient Greeks found. All of it is computed on the device, so a frozen keepsake Moon needs no internet and never expires.
The old Moon in the new Moon's arms
A glow you can just make out
The unlit part of the Moon isn't truly black. It's faintly lit by sunlight bouncing off the Earth, strongest around the new Moon, when the Earth seen from the Moon is nearly "full." Turn on earthshine and Lunaria renders that ashen glow behind the crescent, the sight Leonardo first explained.
Two minutes to the Moon
Plug it in
USB-C, any phone charger. Lunaria wakes and opens its own Lunaria-Setup WiFi hotspot.
Tell it your WiFi
Join the hotspot with your phone and a setup page appears. Enter your network (home, and school & work 802.1X networks too).
It runs itself
WiFi is used only for the clock and your approximate location. From then on the Moon is computed on the device: no app, no account, nothing in the cloud.
Instrument specifications
| Display | 1.75″ round AMOLED, 466 × 466 — deep blacks, made for the night sky |
| Processor | Espressif ESP32-S3, dual-core 240 MHz · 8 MB PSRAM · 16 MB flash |
| The Moon | Clementine albedo and LRO LOLA relief (NASA / USGS, public domain) · per-pixel spherical render, lit by the real Sun, with true libration and apparent size |
| Astronomy | ELP-2000/82 Moon and VSOP87 Sun computed on the device · checked against JPL Horizons (Moon 12″, Sun 1.5″, 1900–2099) · eclipses against NASA's catalogue · phases, rise and set against the US Naval Observatory |
| Eclipses | Every lunar eclipse 1900–2099: penumbral, partial and total, drawn as they happen, with local times and visibility |
| Almanac | Tonight · coming up (named full Moons, supermoons, Blue Moons) · eclipses · on the terminator (800+ named features) · in your sky · tidal pull · impact flashes · keepsakes |
| Keepsakes | Up to five nights, 1900–2099 · freeze on one, or count down to their anniversaries |
| Data | Internet time & an approximate location from CosNFX's own server (or type yours in: nothing looked up) — no accounts, no tracking. The Moon itself needs no network, ever. |
| Connectivity | WiFi 2.4 GHz — WPA2 Personal and Enterprise (802.1X); remembers 3 networks |
| Controls | Web settings page on your network · auto-dim after local sunset (on by default) · no-button recovery: power-cycle 3× to reopen setup |
| Power | USB-C, 5 V — runs whenever it's plugged in |
| Privacy | No account, no login, nothing stored in the cloud |