Re: I need an explaination of the moons altitude in th

Dear S.,
     Your questions about our sister planet are well taken: No less a 
genius than Isaac Newton confessed thinking about the moon's motion gave 
him a headache! I suggest the best way to answer your question is to 
visualize our Earth following its orbit counterclockwise around the sun 
while the moon orbits counterclockwise around us. (The situation is in 
reality more complicated. See Guy Ottenwell's "Astronomical Companion", 
available from SkyPub.com.)
     You have figured out that the phases of the moon are a result of the 
relative positions of sun, earth and moon. From new moon, when the moon is 
in between us and the sun, waxing to full moon, the moon orbits about 15 
degrees counterclockwise per day (360 degrees / 29.5 days ~ 15 degrees/day 
because our earth moves 30 degrees further around our orbit in that time). 
Because the sun is below the horizon at night, and the moon is moving more 
and more opposite it, it appears correspondingly higher in the sky. 
     Then from full waning to new moon the opposite occurs. The situation 
is further complicated (headaches!) by the 5 degree tilt of the moon's 
orbit to ours, precession, nutation and so on. If you are on the World Wide 
Web, go to www.southernstars.com and download a copy of SkyChart III. This 
planetarium software will enable you to explore the motion of the moon from 
your location on earth, any position out in space or from the surface of 
the moon itself - earthrise with a gibbous earth is breathtaking as our 
Apollo astronauts discovered.