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I am looking for beginners information on how I can know when the Moon is going to be visible on a particular night ?

Google-fu says to look for moonrise information about my city from websites such as https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/australia/darwin
So if I followed the above guide for today and started walking on a plane field West-NorthWest direction, at 10.01 PM I should be able to see the Moon. Is my understanding correct? Or is there another way to know when Moon will be visible on a particular (clear) night.

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    $\begingroup$ New moon rises about dawn. First quarter (half moon) rises about noon. Full moon rises about sunset. Last quarter (half moon) rises about midnight. On average, the moon rises about 50 minutes later each night, so if you saw it last week, you can calculate the time it'll be in the same part of the sky this week: observation time + (50 X number of days)/60. On any particular night, it moves at about 4 minutes per degree of sky, so 15 degrees per hour. $\endgroup$ Oct 19, 2016 at 13:18

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Google-fu is correct... It really depends upon where you are, for an exact time. However, if you understand that there are 8 named phases and they typically have a "standard" rise time, you can know approximately what time and what phase will be visible. The one caveat is that you need to look at the moon to know where to start.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ The times look off by 6 hours. "Up all day" should translate to something like "6am–6pm". $\endgroup$ Oct 21, 2016 at 9:46
  • $\begingroup$ @jknappen, you're absolutely right, I've fixed it. Thanks. $\endgroup$
    – LaserYeti
    Oct 21, 2016 at 22:32

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