Upside down moon - 2026

I was not expecting it, even though it happens every year around this time, January or February, but again, as I was in our sitting room last night I saw through the glass doors an upside moon. I immediately went outside on the terrace, took photos and stood there for quite a while, looking at this unusual phenomenon. Even though I have seen this around 6 or 7 times now, I still feel the same excitement as I did the first time I saw it. From the comments I have been getting, other people feel the same, and one of my posts on this phenomenon has reached 17,000 views. You can see that post here

  

I did not manage to get as clear a view as other years this time, but in this photograph you can see the outline of the rest of the moon which you could not the other years.

This is the scientific explanation:

An upside down moon is a result of the moon's orbit around the earth, and the earth's orbit around the sun. And exactly when you see the moon in the shape of a U (lit on the bottom) rather than a backward C depends on what latitude you are at.

We see the moon in the night sky because it is reflecting light from the sun. So the lit part of the moon always points towards the sun. As the earth travels around the sun, the tilt of the earth on its axis sometimes points the northern hemisphere towards the sun and sometimes points the southern hemisphere towards the sun. But this also changes the apparent path of the moon across the night sky when you are on earth looking out at it. Sometimes it travels at an angle towards the horizon and sometimes it travels straight down toward the horizon. When the crescent moon travels straight down the horizon, you will get the U shaped moon. This can happen once or twice a year, depending on the latitude of your location.