New Month and New Moon

It’s a new moon and that means it’s a great time for stargazing. With a dark night sky on a cloudless night it’s easy to spot constellations, shooting stars and of course the Milky Way. The Boundary Waters and Quetico Park are terrific places to view the night sky because there is zero light pollution. Unless you count fireflies as light pollution.

Why can’t you see a new moon? Deborah Byrd tells us why on EarthSky.

On the day of new moon itself, you can’t see the moon with the eye alone for several reasons. First, at new moon, the moon rises when the sun rises. It sets when the sun sets. It crosses the sky with the sun during the day. A new moon is too close to the sun’s glare to be visible with the eye. Plus its lighted hemisphere is facing entirely away from us. It’s only as the moon moves in orbit, as its lighted hemisphere begins to come into view from Earth, that we can see it in our sky.

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