Mahina4.1 - App Store

Moon phase viewer with a Hawaiian twist!

Accurately shows the current phase of the moon generated from a 3-D model of the earth-moon-sun geometry. Calculations are based on detailed equations that correctly take into account orbital characteristics such as inclination, distance, obliquity, nutation, libration, AND [optionally] the device's location on the surface of the Earth. Also generates relevant ephemeris data viewable on separate detail pages. Does not require a network connection; all calculations are performed locally within the app.

Estimates the traditional Hawaiian lunar calendar day name based on calculated predictions for the astronomical full moon occurring near the beginning of the Hawaiian day Hoku. Traditional Hawaiian days ends at sunset, not midnight.

* Allows two-finger pinch-zoom gesture.

* Animate the phases of the moon over time by selecting "Animate" from the action menu; tap the animation to stop. Double-tap to reset back to current time, rotation, and zoom. The information icon in the lower-right corner brings up the action menu with multiple options.

* Details page displays several moon ephemeris calculations for the given date and time. Items can be reordered and/or deleted from the list to prioritize which data items are displayed. Long-press on a value to copy to clipboard.

* Motion sensors [if enabled] automatically rotate the moon image on the Phase tab to keep it in sync with what one might see in the sky. Enable Location Services for this feature to work. If Location Services are turned off, use the two-finger rotate gesture to manually rotate the moon image.

* Lists upcoming phases with their dates and times on the Upcoming tab, and optionally displays alert notifications when they are about to occur. Identifies full moon at perigee as a "super moon."

* Shows the phases of the moon for a full calendar year on the Calendar tab - swipe left and right to see other years.

* Today widget quickly shows the current phase of the moon and the traditional Hawaiian day name on the lock screen or when the app's icon is Force Touched. If location information is available, will also show the parallactic angle, whether the moon is visible above the horizon, and next rise and set times.

* iOS14 users can add new widgets to their home screen pages. These widgets display upcoming phase milestones, the current Hawaiian day name and fishing/planting hints, and/or the current month of moon phases in calendar form.

Users in the southern hemisphere should go to the Settings app, scroll down to the Mahina settings, and set the "Hemisphere" setting to "Southern." The application will try to automatically set this value if location permission was granted, but it couldn't hurt to make sure.

Two iOS permissions need to be granted for the app to utilize its full feature set. Location Services is needed to know when the moon rises and sets, and its orientation/rotation in the sky as seen from the device location. The app does not track the user's location or send that location off the device. It uses a three-kilometer location radius that updates whenever the device travels more than 80 kilometers (~50 miles) from the last known position.

Notification permission is needed to display local alerts when phase milestones are about to occur (full moon, new moon, first and last quarters). The alerts are locally generated and do not come from any external service.

We will never show ads within this app!

Version History Version 4.1 updates the widgets to work with the latest iOS 17. Also added a few more widgets involving the native Hawaiian calendar lunar months. In keeping with our policy of only supporting the latest 3 major iOS versions, we have dropped support for anything less than iOS15. 4.1 09/23/2023 Changed the algorithm for calculating the traditional Hawaiian day. Previous versions started the month on the first time a sharp-eyed kahu would be able to spot a crescent moon at sunset. It always chose that day as Hilo, but doing so frequently means other important days, like Hoku, didn't line up with the other phases of the moon. Instead of protecting Hilo on the first crescent, the new algorithm tries to get the astronomical full moon as close to the start of Hoku as possible, as long as Hilo doesn't appear after the appearance of the first crescent. A future release may provide a setting switch to be able to choose the new or old Hawaiian day algorithms.

Fixed a bunch of bugs while I was at it. Please feel free to report any bugs you may find. 4.0 06/16/2023 Fixed a light-mode bug - the new yellow font was unreadable, so changed back to blue for light-mode. 3.6 10/24/2021 Update for iOS 15 compatibility. Minor layout/UI tweaks to the moon-phase calendar widgets. 3.5 10/09/2021 If the next-supermoon widget shows a date more than a year out, show the text as "mon year" (eg: Jun 2022) instead of "mon day" (Jun 14) so that it's clear that the event is more than a year out and not the upcoming date.

Fixed a bug whereby an upcoming-phase widget might hold onto a missing-image response for far too long. For example, if the next super-moon is more than a year away and it wasn't able to retrieve the image from the server, we don't want it holding onto that missing-image for a full year or more. If the image couldn't be retrieved, try again no more than seven days later. If you happen to be in that situation from a previous version of the app, launch the Mahina app, then go to system Settings app for Mahina, change the default hemisphere (north or south), and return to Mahina. The cached timelines for all the widgets will be thrown out and reloaded. Don't forget to go back into settings and change the default hemisphere back to the proper value! 3.4 05/29/2021 Added a new set of moon calendar widgets for iOS14. Fixed a bug in the upcoming phases widget panel timeline expirations. 3.3 01/02/2021 Added a few iOS14 Widgets 3.2 12/17/2020 Added fishing and farming hints on the detail pages. 3.1 05/10/2020 Support iOS 13 and dark mode. Switch rendering from the deprecated OpenGL and custom shaders to SceneKit/Metal. Provide crater/mountain relief at the terminator. Remove detail page sections, allow for the detail item rows to be reordered, and any uninteresting items deleted. Provide icon for apogee/perigee rather than "A/P". New information listed on the Today widget. Long-press on detail item values brings up menu to copy to the clipboard. Fixed bug with upcoming phase milestones when approaching the next milestone.

Removed the planets and stars rendering. Will maybe add it back later if folks actually want it. 3.0 11/07/2019 New dark theme. Updated for minimum version of iOS10, compatibility with iOS12. Tweaked phase alert text. Added higher-resolution 3x resources. Allow more upcoming phases to be displayed in the Upcoming list. 2.4 10/03/2018 Added the traditional Hawaiian day name to the display, based on the Hawaiian lunar month calendar. The first day of the Hawaiian month is the first time the new crescent moon is visible at sunset after the lunar conjunction, calculated as viewed from Oahu.

Added an apogee/perigee indicator (furthest/nearest point of the lunar orbit, respectively) in the upper-right corner of the main phase display screen, and tagged full moon super moons. 2.3 02/20/2018 Update for iOS 11. 2.2 10/03/2017 Fixed crashing bug when swiping in the calendar view. Added a moon up/down indicator in the upper-right. Changed the default size of the moon to be a little larger than before, and the default view is always NOW (got tired of launching the app to see what the moon phase is now, and having to reset with the action menu first). I also got tired of accidentally activating the animation mode; that's cool to watch, but not really useful, and I always ended up having to reset back to now. Rather I put the Animate function behind the action menu that's brought up by tapping the information-icon in the lower-right. 2.1 07/03/2017 Use the device location information to properly calculate the parallactic angle of the moon relative to the horizon, and the device motion sensors to properly orient the image of the moon on the screen to what you should see in the sky. By default, when both the location and motion sensors on the device are available, the two-finger rotate feature will not be available (since the moon will rotate automatically as the phone is rotated). There is a new setting to turn off the automatic motion-sensor rotation, at which point you would be able to manually rotate the moon image. 2.0 02/09/2017 Now requests the phone's location in order to calculate lunar rise and set times; declining location permission will simply cause rise and set times not to be calculated. Location information is not saved, transmitted, or otherwise tracked.

Today widget! Add the Mahina Today widget to your today screen to quickly and easily see the current phase of the moon, plus the next rise and set times (if location permission has been given). 1.3 11/13/2016 Added a stylized but somewhat accurate star map background showing which constellation the moon is currently within, and which planets and stars are around it. Not accurate enough to predict occultations. A few minor UI tweaks based on feedback, such as adding an information-icon action-menu button. Shaking to reset or press-and-hold to bring up an action menu aren't very discoverable. 1.2 09/13/2016 Fixed the rendering problem with the moon 3D model on the main Phase tab. 1.1 08/21/2016 1.0 08/16/2016