Moon sighting for Eid Al Fitr in UAE: Will Shawwal crescent be visible on March 29?

As countries around the world prepare for the next moon sighting for Eid Al Fitr, it is expected to fall on Saturday, March 29, 2025.

But moon sighting itself may not be possible across most of the globe, due to the timing of the moon's visibility, Astronomy Centre has claimed. It gave a map and a rough location of where you can probably find the moon.

If the crescent is sighted, Ramadan will be 29 days long, with Eid Al Fitr falling on March 30. And if it is not seen then Eid Al Fitr will fall on 31 March.
It said the crescent on such a day will be "impossible to be seen in the eastern parts of the world and not possible everywhere else in the Arab and Islamic world even using observation methods including naked eye, telescope and photography techniques."

Quoting calculations from the Dubai Astronomy Group, it said the holy month will have the maximum period of 30 days. The Group also claimed that "Moon Eid Al Fitr is likely to be seen the UAE on the evening of March 30, with Eid Al Fitr, afterwards taking place on March 31."

How does it work?

On Saturday, there will be a solar eclipse in the middle of the day, which western Arab countries will see, including Mauritania, the Moroccan and Algerian parts and Tunisia. Solar eclipse is the physical proof of conjunction which also implies that cresent is not visible at that point of time and just after that moment.

Crescent phase will be visible only in the telescope from central and northern parts of the Americas, but spotting it will be very hard even with the telescope from eastern parts of the continent, it said. Except in parts of the Pacific Ocean west of the United States, the crescent should not be visible without instruments.

As the experts stated: "The map below shows where the crescent may be visible on Saturday, March 29 (the dotted line gives an indication of how far north or south the crescent can be seen)

• The draped red regions denote sighting impossibility because the moon sets before sunset and/or conjunction happens after sunset.

• Whitespa­ces show areas where no sighting can be done automatically namely eye or telescope.

• The crescent may only be visible through a telescope in only the blue areas.

• The pink areas are what the crescent might look like through a telescope, and in the best of atmospheric conditions, discernable to the unaided eye by an experienced observer.

Experts, therefore, said in the light of the above scientific and observational facts, reports of sighting of crescent on Saturday should be treated with scepticism because such lights are seen when there is no crescent and the imaginations of observers believing they have sighted the crescent also account for this Auditory illusion.

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