Deluxe Moon - Moon Calendar, P

Review by eFreeware

Planning anything around the moon usually means juggling several sources. One page gives you the phase, another the rise time for your area, a third the zodiac position, and none of them agree on how to present a date you want to look up next month. Deluxe Moon, from LWS Research, is an attempt to fold all of that into a single Android app, and the breadth of what it covers is the first thing that stands out.

It is a paid weather-category app at $3.99, with no ads and no in-app purchases, so what you see is what you get. That price buys a lunar calendar rather than a general sky guide: phases, rise and set data, zodiac tables and calendar views, all built around the moon specifically.

The app has been on Google Play since July 2010 and was last updated in August 2026, which suggests a long-running project rather than a quick release. It carries a 4.9 average from 3,113 ratings and sits above 50,000 installs, numbers that point to a settled, well-liked tool rather than a novelty.

The people this lunar calendar is built for

Astronomers, photographers and hunters are the audience it is built for, and that framing makes sense. Anyone who needs to know when the moon rises, how high it will sit, how far away it is and how much of it will be lit has a practical reason to check those figures before heading out. The app also lists sunrise, sunset and zenith times, which matters when a session depends on the window between dusk and moonrise.

There is a second audience in the astrology and gardening material. Moon Days come with written characteristics, recommendations and precautions, plus sections on business, personal life, health and hair care; Moon in Zodiac adds horoscope and beauty-care notes. Gardening advice follows the current phase and zodiac sign. Readers who plan planting, haircuts or appointments by lunar tradition will find that layer far more developed than in a plain phase calendar.

The tone is inclusive rather than narrow. Someone curious about the difference between solar and lunar zodiac can explore it here, while a photographer who only wants tonight's illumination percentage can ignore the interpretive text entirely. Both are served by the same data.

Phases, rise and set times, and the numbers behind them

The core of the app is a set of moon parameters: precise phase times, the moon's age within its cycle, the percentage of illuminated area, moonrise and moonset for your location, and timers showing how long since moonrise or until moonset. Azimuths and elevation are included too, along with the moon's distance from Earth and its ecliptic longitude and latitude. For anyone who wants to point a camera or a telescope, those are the figures that matter most.

Location is central to all of this. The app asks for coarse and fine location permission because rise and set calculations depend on where you are, and it also allows a custom location, date and time in its options. That combination is useful for planning ahead: you can set a date weeks out and a place you intend to visit, then read the numbers for that scenario rather than for wherever you happen to be standing.

The interface leans on a touch-and-turn idea, where swiping the moon vertically moves the date by a month and horizontally by a day. A large compass and the sun and moon timers sit alongside it. There are also tables for astronomical events and twilight, a scrollable brightness diagram, monthly phase tables, apogee and perigee figures, equinox and solstice dates, and solar and lunar eclipse listings, so the reference material goes well past a simple phase display.

Calendars, zodiac positions and lunar tradition

Three calendars form the backbone of the date-based side: moon phases, moon days and moon zodiac. The zodiac section goes further than most, covering both tropical and sidereal systems with animated circles and astronomical constellations, exact positions in a sign, and the precise times the moon enters and leaves a sign. Void-of-Course periods are given to the minute, and there are different calculation algorithms for the sidereal zodiac, which is the kind of detail that matters to readers who follow a specific tradition.

The astrology layer builds on that with Moon Mansions in the western tropical zodiac and Nakshatras with Padas in the sidereal one. Moon Days carry the descriptive text, and the app invites you to rate days and collect statistics so you can see which ones work well for you over time. Whether or not you take any of it literally, the structure is there for people who do.

Gardening advice ties the phase and the zodiac sign together into recommendations for planting and care. It is a small part of the app next to the astronomical tables, but it is a genuine feature rather than an afterthought, and it gives the app a use for readers who come to lunar cycles through the garden rather than the sky.

Widgets, wallpapers and sharing

Deluxe Moon puts the moon on your home screen as well as inside the app. There are four moon widgets, a moon phase calendar widget and a live wallpaper with large moon images, so the current phase can be visible without opening anything. For an app whose whole subject changes nightly, that is a sensible way to keep the information in view.

Sharing has been part of the picture since release 1.101, when the developer added the ability to send moon data to Instagram: you pick a date and a theme, then share the parameters with friends. It is a small feature, but it turns a reference tool into something you can post when a phase or an eclipse is worth pointing out.

Improved translations and a refined layout point to an app that has been polished over a long period rather than one that stopped after launch.

What the $3.99 covers

Deluxe Moon is a paid app at $3.99. Nothing in the app is gated behind a second payment, and there is no advertising layer to work around.

That is a straightforward arrangement compared with the ad-supported calendars that dominate this corner of the store, which ask for attention instead of a one-time payment. You pay once and the app opens without interruption. For a tool you might check every evening, the absence of ads is a real part of the value, even if it is not something you notice after the first week.

Given the 4.9 average across more than three thousand ratings, that decision looks reasonably well supported, but it is still a purchase made up front.

How it compares with other ways of tracking the moon

The obvious alternatives are general weather apps that include a moon phase tile, and free lunar calendars that carry advertising. A weather app will tell you the phase at a glance, but it will not give you azimuths, elevation, apogee and perigee tables, eclipse listings or zodiac entry times. If a phase icon is all you need, a weather app already covers it and you can save the money.

A free lunar calendar gets closer on the astronomy side, but the trade is usually ads and a shallower treatment of the interpretive material. Deluxe Moon goes deep on Moon Days, Mansions, Nakshatras and Void-of-Course times, and pairs that with gardening guidance. Readers who follow lunar tradition seriously will find more here than in a typical free calendar.

A planetarium or stargazing app is another route, and those tend to be stronger for general sky navigation. Deluxe Moon is narrower by design: it is about the moon, its cycles and the traditions attached to them. If your interest is the moon specifically, the focus is an advantage; if you want the whole sky, a broader astronomy app will serve you better.

A considered purchase for lunar detail

Deluxe Moon earns a recommendation for readers who want lunar information in depth and are happy to pay once for it. Astronomers, photographers and hunters get the rise, set, elevation and illumination figures they need, with custom location and date settings for planning ahead. Gardeners and astrology readers get a developed layer of Moon Days, zodiac positions, Mansions and Nakshatras that few calendars attempt.

The case against it is narrow rather than serious. None of those are flaws so much as boundaries, and they are boundaries the app declares openly.

If you check the moon regularly and want the numbers, the calendars and the traditional material in one place, this is a well-established app with a strong rating behind it. If a phase icon in your weather app is enough, that costs nothing and this one is not aimed at you.

What's new in version 1.110

• Improved translations. • Refined the layout for a better user experience.