<p>The short answer is yes: there are hours of the night when the Moon is not visible. As others have indicated, the New Moon rises around the time of sunrise and sets around the time of sunset; therefore, the New Moon is not visible in the nighttime sky.</p>

<p>The Moon takes approximately 27 days to move through the zodiac, so its eastward movement of 360 degrees over 27 days leads to the Moon rising approximately 50 minutes later each day. (That is an average; the details are more complex.) If it rises at 9 pm today, it will rise around 9:50 pm tomorrow, and so on. After enough days, it will be dark for many hours before the Moon rises.</p>

<p>Likewise, when you see the First Quarter Moon in the evening sky, it sets in the middle of the night. The remainder of the night is thus without a Moon.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-27T03:45:33.443Z
2018-07-27T03:45:33.443Z
JohnHoltz
<p>My husband has told me that there are nights when there is no moon in the sky, because it has risen in the morning and set before dusk. I don’t believe him. Does this happen?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-26T23:43:34.373Z
Right around the new moon it will be very close to the sun in the sky, so you may not see much of it at all. It also won't be illuminated, so it will be hard to see near the bright sun.
zeta-band
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-27T16:39:51.643Z
Unless you look hard, there are about 3 days on either side of new moon where the orb can be quite difficult to find. The moon rises about 50 minutes later each day in reasonable latitudes. that's about 12.5° further from sun (25 lunar diameters). By day 3 it'll be about 37° away from sun so not that hard to spot.
Wayfaring Stranger
<the-moon>
Moonless nights?
Timbo 
# Moonless nights?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-07-26)

My husband has told me that there are nights when there is no moon in the sky, because it has risen in the morning and set before dusk. I don’t believe him. Does this happen?

**Tags:** the-moon

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Right around the new moon it will be very close to the sun in the sky, so you may not see much of it at all. It also won't be illuminated, so it will be hard to see near the bright sun.  
> **username_2**: Unless you look hard, there are about 3 days on either side of new moon where the orb can be quite difficult to find. The moon rises about 50 minutes later each day in reasonable latitudes. that's about 12.5° further from sun (25 lunar diameters). By day 3 it'll be about 37° away from sun so not that hard to spot.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2018-07-27. Score: 4

The short answer is yes: there are hours of the night when the Moon is not visible. As others have indicated, the New Moon rises around the time of sunrise and sets around the time of sunset; therefore, the New Moon is not visible in the nighttime sky.

The Moon takes approximately 27 days to move through the zodiac, so its eastward movement of 360 degrees over 27 days leads to the Moon rising approximately 50 minutes later each day. (That is an average; the details are more complex.) If it rises at 9 pm today, it will rise around 9:50 pm tomorrow, and so on. After enough days, it will be dark for many hours before the Moon rises.

Likewise, when you see the First Quarter Moon in the evening sky, it sets in the middle of the night. The remainder of the night is thus without a Moon.


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