So many books have characters remark "it was well past moonrise", or something else equally ridiculous, to show the passage of time at night. ~~The moon cycle is a month long (~27 days), not some paltry 24 hours.~~ If you know any authors please spread the word. Together we can stamp out this astronomical disillusionment!
[EDIT]
A smarter than me commenter below pointed out that, due to the way days work, it does indeed rise and set once a day. Hard to do a complete rotation and keep a celestial body in the sky. Womp womp, I am silly.
I should have instead argued that moon rise and set are not linked to sun rise and set, and that the moon doesn't exclusively rise and set at night. It is possible to have the moon out during the day time. They are on different schedules is all.
Moon Rise, Moon Set, and Moon Phase are three different things.
https://earthsky.org/moon-phases/understandingmoonphases/
"The moon rises in the east and sets in the west, every day.
It has to. The rising and setting of all celestial objects is due to Earth’s continuous daily spin beneath the sky.
So, when you see a thin crescent moon in the west after sunset, it’s not a rising moon. Instead, it’s a setting moon. In fact, it rose earlier in the morning soon after the sun rose."
So, locally, for me today:
https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/usa/portland-or
Moon Rise - 1:34 am
Moon Set - 5:20 pm
Meridian Passing - 9:34 am @ 246,883 miles.
Ah, got me there. Thanks for the info!
My main point, that moon rise and set don't bookend nighttime, still stands. I was just arguing with the wrong deets. 1:34 am and 5:20 pm are not the start and end of the night. I'll edit my post to better reflect reality in a bit.
I've actually read some books that did this well, like needing to sneak around after moon set or continuing to travel after moon rise.