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Basically, you can't see the moon when it is below the horizon. So at those times when the moon is visible to you during the day, it will probably not be visible to you that night. Very near the time of new moon, the moon is by definition closer to the sun and will be difficult if not impossible to observe with the naked eye.

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13y ago
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10y ago

You certainly CAN see stars from the moon, and if light from the sun and earth are not interfering, the sight must be nothing less than dazzling. You would never have to contend with bad weather, or with other kinds of atmospheric disturbance.

You may wonder why stars don't appear in photographs that were taken during lunar landings. Keep in mind that the astronauts were not interested in stellar observation when they were on the moon. The photos were to document the landing itself and to highlight surface features. There were some modifications to the cameras taken to the moon, but as I understand it, they still had features designed to "optimize" exposure by doing things like controlling the over-all average of "gray" that an exposure would produce. There can only be so much exposure in order for lit objects in a scene to give good detail. While the stars are breathtaking, they are still appearing as tiny specks of light. If the camera were set to capture the light of the stars (longer exposure), the other objects in the scene would have been completely washed out.

Photographing stars is not extremely difficult, but it's not easy, either. Try it with your camera. See if you can get good images of the stars just by taking a snapshot in a very dark place on a clear night. If your camera has any auto features, it will probably "complain". At the same location, try taking a photo of a buddy using your flash (so you get decent detail) and where there are also stars in the background. See what you get.

The Apollo 16 mission took along a portable observatory. Shielded from the above mentioned Sun and Earth light, it took nearly 200 pictures of the stars. It showed the stars in frequencies never seen before, as the Earth's atmosphere absorbs them before they reach the ground. Later space observatories of various nations confirmed the photos as accurate.

You can see plenty of stars on the Moon, even when the Sun is in the sky. That was confirmed by astronauts visiting the Moon.

You can see stars because the Moon has no atmosphere and so the sky is black even in daylight.

A different answer:

The distance of the Moon from the Sun isn't significantly different to Earth's distance from the Sun, so when it's daylight on the Moon it's just bright there as it is here. In fact, because of the lack of weather, it's probably a bit brighter.

The Earth's atmosphere doesn't really make much difference, as it's still there at night time and doesn't go away when it gets dark, but it does mean that the sky on Earth is also bright during the day time, whereas the sky is always dark on the Moon. However, any photographs you see from the moon will be exposed for the ground brightness, and not the sky brightness.

If you were on the Moon, whether on the day or night side, you'd be able to see and photograph the stars just as you can on Earth at night time.

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6y ago

The time it takes for the moon to revolve around Earth is 28 days. The time it takes for the moon to rotate is 28 days. Therefore, you only see one side of the moon.

Note: It is probably best not to think of the far side of the moon as 'dark'. It may not seem intuitively obvious, but if you could observe conditions on the far side, you would have the same experiences of lunar day and lunar night as you would on the visible side. You would just have them at different times, just as day and night time happen at different times for different places on earth. Until the very recent past, calling it 'the dark side' reflected the fact that we had no way of observing that part of the moon.

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15y ago

The moon is an orbiting body, and only one side of the moon is facing the sun at any time. Without reflected sunlight from the moon we are unable to see it. Sometimes the moon is in parts of its orbit around earth that place it nearer to the sun than we are. At these times it will often be visible during the day and not during the night time. The plane of the moon's orbit around the earth and the plane of earth's orbit around the sun are reasonably close but not identical. when the moon makes its closest approach to the sun each month the moon is completely obscured by the sun (unless there is a solar eclipse). This is called New Moon. The amount of time the moon takes to complete a full cycle of phases (the synodic period) is 29 days, 12 hours and 44 minutes. A full 360 degree orbit around earth (orbital period) takes about 27.32 days.

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12y ago

The moon is visible during the day, depending on its phase and when the moon rises. The moon rises about 50 minutes later each day, so that will also affect when during the day the moon is visible. The moon's gossamer appearance during the day is due to the effects of earth's atmosphere that scatters the sun's light before it reaches our eyes, not the brightness of the sun.

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15y ago

The moon can be "invisible" for a couple of reasons: depending on where it is in its cycle of rotation around the earth(*) it might be on the day side of our planet, meaning you can't see it because it's in the wrong position in the sky, or it may be on the night side but in the earth's shadow. In this situation sometimes, but not always, enough light is scattered through the earth's atmosphere to faintly illuminate the moon even when it's in the shadows. Because the atmosphere tends to scatter blue light the moon will have a bluish cast to it, hence the expression "blue moon"!

(*) Actually the earth and moon are almost a double-planet system. The two bodies rotate about their paired center of gravity, called the barycenter, that lies roughly 1100 km below the earth's surface - quite a ways out from the actual center of the planet.

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14y ago

You can. With a small telescope, it is possible to see the shadows of the lunar mountains.
And of course, during a lunar eclipse, you can see the shadow of the Earth itself. The fact that the Earth's shadow is curved was one of the items that convinced the ancient Greek scientists that the Earth itself was round.

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13y ago

We only "see" light rays that hit our eyes. Because the Sun is so bright, we NEVER look directly at the Sun, so what we're seeing most of the time is rays of sunlight that hit other things and bounce off. We "see" the rays that bounce off and go straight into our eyes.

We can sometimes see light rays - when some of them bounce off of dust or water vapor. Most of the light goes straight through, but some of the rays bounce to our eyes, giving the effect of being able to see the sunlight.

Light rays going from the Sun to the Moon don't bounce off, because there is nothing in between the Sun and Moon that could reflect light. Once the sunlight hits the Moon, about 4% of it bounces off, and some of that comes to our eyes - which we think of as "moonlight".

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12y ago

Just like everything else in the sky, the moon is up for about half the time, and

down during the other half. It's up for about 121/2 hours out of every 25, and

it's often visible during the daytime.

If the moon happens to be up at the time you're looking for it, and the sky is

clear ... and you know where to look ... then you can see it. Guaranteed.

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14y ago

If the Moon is in the waxing crescent phase, it sets within an hour or so of sunset. If it is a waning crescent phase, it rises an hour or so before sunrise.

In the middle of the night, you cannot see the crescent moon because it is not up.

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Q: Why cant you see the moon on a clear night?
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Related questions

What phase is the moon in when you cant see it in a clear nighttime sky?

new moon


Why is it sometimes you can see the moon in the day and sometimes you can't see it at night?

u cant see the moon at night when its new moon I'm not sure about the day


What can you see in a clear night starting with M?

The "moon" :L


Why cant you see the moon as well in the day as you can at night?

because of the sun


What is it called when you can't see the moon on a clear night?

It is not 'called' anything. The moon has not yet risen at your location.


How do you use the word full moon in a sentence?

It was a really clear night and you could see the full moon perfectly.


What does clear moon-frost soon mean?

This phrase means that on a clear night when you can see the moon very clearly in fall, winter, or spring that frost is likely to occur.


On a clear night when an observer in Los Angeles sees a first quarter Moon an observer in London would see?

That person in London would see a new moon.


What determines how much moon you see on a clear night?

The moon doesn't get it's own light the sun reflexes on the moon so basically the sun brightens the moon for light. :)


Why cant you see the moon on winter nights?

You can see it on winter nights. Maybe you just don't go out enough on a winter night...


Can you see clear mascara?

No you cant see it thats why its called CLEAR!


What determines the portion of the moon that you see at night?

what determines the portion of the moon that you see at night