Daytime moon after sunrise in first week of September

Daytime moon seen on December 18, 2010. Image by Brian Pate. Used with permission.

The last full moon – the second full moon of August or Blue Moon – has passed. Now the moon is in a waning gibbous phase, which means it’ll rise later and later each evening. Look for the moon in the east in early evening tonight and in that same location, later each night, in the coming week. But that’s not all. You can see the moon in the west after sunrise, starting tomorrow.

Sylvia asked:

When is the best time to see the moon in the sky during daylight hours?

The daytime moon is up there much of the time, but, because it’s pale against the blue sky, it’s not as noticeable as the moon at night.

The most noticeable moon at night is the one farthest from the sun in the sky. That would be around the time of full moon each month, when the moon is 180 degrees from the sun, on the opposite side of the sky’s dome. Full moon was August 31, at 13:58 Universal Time (8:58 a.m. Central Daylight Time). If you looked, you saw a bright moon in the sky all night last night.

Blue Moon – second August full moon – on August 31, 2012

A full moon rises around sunset and sets around sunrise. But now the moon is now in a waning gibbous phase – rising later each night – and setting in the west after sunrise.
So, in the next several mornings – after sunrise – look for the waning gibbous moon over your western horizon during the morning hours. It’ll be about to set. At mid-northern latitudes in North America, the moon will set at roughly 8:30 a.m. Sunday (September 2), 9:30 a.m. on Monday, 10:30 a.m. Tuesday and 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. If you consider those times as approximate, they will hold true for much of the world.

Moon’s rising and setting time in your sky

By the way, the moon is up during the day half the time. It has to be, since it orbits around the whole Earth once a month. Sometimes the daytime moon is hard to see because it’s so near the sun in the sky. And consider that if the sun is low in the sky, a slim crescent daytime moon might be straight overhead, so that you’d have to crane your neck, looking up, to notice it.

September 2012 guide to the five visible planets

Ordinarily, we don’t look up during the day to see such a thin crescent moon. That’s one reason people are sometimes surprised to learn the moon is out so often during the day.
But as the moon gets farther from the sun in our sky, the portion of its lighted half turned in our direction increases. In other words, the farther the moon is from the sun, the larger the visible phase of the moon … and the easier to see a daytime moon.
Bottom line: In the first week of September 2012, look for the daytime moon in the west after sunrise!

Understanding moon phases
Why isn’t there an eclipse every full moon?
Does the dark side of the moon really exist?

- EARTHSKY