Want an easy way to track lunar phases, be it for educational, entertainment or more esoteric needs? If so, there’s a new GNOME Extension worth checking out.

Luna is a moon phase indicator for GNOME Shell. It shows the current moon phase as an icon in the top bar/panel using icons. The icons stick to standard lunar iconography, e.g., full circle for a full moon, half circle for a crescent moon, outlined circle for new moon, etc.

Clicking on the moon glyph unfurls a mini-menu, with a small set of textual info on show:

  • Current moon phase
  • Next phase
  • Illumination in percentage

Plus, there’s an action to manually refresh the data (the extension automatically refreshes every hour).

Menu reveals a little more detail

Beyond that, this Luna extension doesn’t do anything else. It’s simply a way to see the current moon phase for whatever reason – agricultural, astronomical, astrological, ample lighting on the way back from the pub, aversion to werewolves…

Lunar – lots of info potential

The moon means many things to a many people, so there’s scope for this extension to relay more moon-related data in its drop-down menu.

Based on my own experience of using various moon-related smartphones apps, Conky scripts, OS widgets, etc over the decades, here’s a list of data Luna could present:

  • Moon rise/set times
  • Current moon’s age in days
  • Days until next full and/or new moon
  • Upcoming lunar events (in days)
  • Twilight rise/set times
  • Folkloric name(s) of current moon
  • Lunation number
  • Turn panel icon blue during a “blue moon”

I reckon many an avid star gazer would be over the moon—don’t groan; this is OMG!—were Luna to add some of those stats.

Yet, even without them, Luna is a charming top bar embellishment that saves folks from having to Google “what phase is the moon tonight” — or craning their necks to gawp up at the real moon!

It also adds a thick Sharpie underline to why the GNOME extension ecosystem is such a terrific plus since niche needs, personal itches and quirky curios like this can be made and shared with similarly-minded folks, without relying on DE developers to cater to them.

Install Moon Phase Extension

Whimsy or worthwhile, Luna exists.

If you think adding the active moon phase to your desktop panel would add some cosmically cute vibes, you can install Luna — but only on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (or any other Linux distro with GNOME 46) from GNOME Extensions website1.

Hopefully support for newer releases, like GNOME 48, will be added soon.

Get Luna (Moon Phase Indicator) on GNOME Extensions