Day length and the moon?
489609
Not havieng a moon would not have affected the lengh of the day.  The moon doesn't play an important part in the lengh of the day anyway.
453034
Full moon\n\nThe Galileo spacecraft took this composite image on 7 December 1992 on its way to explore the Jupiter system in 1995-97. The color is 'enhanced' in the sense that the CCD camera is sensitive to near infrared wavelengths of light beyond human vision.The Full Moon is the lunar phase that occurs when the Moon lies on the opposite side of Earth from the Sun. The Moon as seen from the surface of Earth is fully illuminated by the Sun at this time, presenting a "full" round disk to viewers on Earth. As always, only half the total surface of the Moon is illuminated.\n\n\n1 Eclipses \n2 Numbers and formulae \n3 Folklore \n4 Calendars \n5 Full Moon names \n6 The Blue moon \n7 See also \n8 References \n \n\n\n\nEclipses\nA Full Moon is the only time when a lunar eclipse is possible; at that time the Moon may move through the shadow cast by Earth. However, because of the tilt or inclination of the Moon's orbit around Earth relative to Earth's orbit around the Sun, the Moon usually passes to the north or south of Earth's shadow at Full Moon, so a lunar eclipse does not occur at every Full Moon.\n\nFull Moons are generally a poor time to conduct astronomical observations, since the bright reflected sunlight from the Moon overwhelms the dimmer light from stars.\n\n\nNumbers and formulae\nAlthough on average it takes only 27.322 days (sidereal month) for the Moon to complete one orbit around Earth, it requires about two more days than that to again catch up with the Sun. On average, the number of days between Full Moons is about 29.5306 days. The actual number of days may differ from the average number by more than a half day. From one Full Moon to the next, the number of days in one lunation can vary between 29.272 and 29.833 days.\n\nThe age and apparent size of the Full Moon vary in a cycle of just under 14 synodic months, which is called the Full moon cycle.\n\nThe combined date and time of Full Moon number N, using a fictitious moon that moves at a strictly mean rate is approximately:\n\nD = 20.362954 + 29.5305888531 × N + 102.19 × 10-12 × N 2 \nD is the number of days (and fractions) since 1 January 2000 00:00:00 UTC, \nN is the count of full moons starting with zero as the first (not 1 as you would have expected) as the first Moon in the year 2000. \nThe true Full Moon may differ from this by up to about 14.5 hours, due to the normal irregularity in the Moon's Keplerian orbit, and due to the periodic perturbations on that Keplerian orbit by the Sun, the equatorial bulge of Earth, and nearby planets.\n\nSee the New Moon page for a detailed explanation of the formula.\n\n\nFolklore\nFull Moons are traditionally associated with temporal insomnia, insanity (hence the terms lunacy and lunatic) and various magical phenomena such as lycanthropy.\n\nPsychologists have found that there is no strong evidence for effects on behaviour around Full Moon [1]. They find that studies are not consistent, with some showing a positive effect, while others will show a negative effect. In one instance, the December 23, 2000 issue of the British Medical Journal published two studies on dog bite admission to hospitals in England and Australia. The study of the Bradford Royal Infirmary found that dog bites were twice as common at Full Moon, while the study of public hospitals in Australia found they were less likely at Full Moon. Psychologists point out that there is a difference between correlation and causation. The mere fact that two events happen at the same time doesn't mean that there is a cause and effect relationship between the two.\n\nNeopagans hold a monthly ritual called an Esbat at each Full Moon.\n\nMany people practicing traditional Chinese religions prepare their ritual offerings to their ancestors and deities on every Full Moon and New Moon.\n\n\nCalendars\nThe Islamic calendar and the traditional Chinese calendar are both based on the phases of the Moon. Neither calendar, however, begins i
623290
It is because you are trying to make a round peg fit into a square hole.\n\n7 x 4 = 28 x 13 lunar months = 364 days, \nbut there are 365 days in a regular year. \nThen in order to fit into the Earth's rotation around the Sun every 4th year we have to add an extra day.\nPlus occasionally we have Leap seconds too.\nConfused?
846251
The moon has a 28-day orbit around the earth so naturally there is a part of that cycle when it will be on the same side of the earth as the sun. Note though that you cannot have a full moon in the sky during the day since a full moon means that the earth, sun and moon all line up. You can have a new moon in the sky during the day since the moon is then between us and the sun and all we see is the dark side.
225731
Here is a very simple and precise explanation with good illustrations\nhttp://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/moonorange/
782867
no.  it affects the tides in a big way though, which can lead to weather.  But the moon doesn't affect our weather directly
524941
You can use this moon phase calculator...\nhttp://tycho.usno.navy.mil/vphase.html
24559
The distance that the moon is from the earth depends on the location of the moon during the lunar calendar.\n\nWhen it is closest to the earth, the moon is 363,300 km from the earth (roughly 225,744.154 miles, 1.19192913 × 109 feet)\nWhen the moon is the farthest away, it is 405,500 km from the earth (roughly 251,966.018 miles, 1.33038058 × 10^9 feet)\nOn average, the distance from the earth to the moon is 384,400 km (roughly 238,855.086 miles, 1.26115486 × 10^9 feet)\n\nMeasurements reveal that the Moon's distance to the Earth increases by 38 mm per year!
425853
You can learn that something is moving.  Either the earth is rotating (true), or the sky is revolving around the earth (once thought to be true).  You can also measure the length of the siderial day.  That is the length of time it take for the earth to rotate reletive to the stars.  Our "day" of 24 hours is based on the sun's motion.  If we were to measure time based on the stars we would have a day of 23hours and 56 minutes.  You can measure the length of the day with star trails, although to really get the timing down might be hard.
829990
You want exactly 8:23 but didn't say what time zone. At 8:23 am UT, which is the same as Greenwich Mean Time, the Moon was 62.3 Earth radii away. The mean diameter of the Earth is 12,742 km which gives a radius of 6,371 km so the distance to the Moon is 62.3 * 6,371 = 396,913 km or 246,755 miles. You can use the source to get the distance for some other time. After entering the date and time (UT is GMT which is the time in London, England), see the table at the bottom for the distance.
240326
It always rises and sets 55 minutes later than the earlier day.\nFor example; if today the moon rise is at 8:00 p.m. then tomorrow it will be at 8:55 p.m. Same way for the setting of the moon.
723622
The phases of the moon are the same around the world. What varies is the rise and set time. The US Naval Observatory is a great site for this.
1163799
There aren't 24 hours in a day. In fact, no day is 24 hours long. The average length of a day is just short of 24 hours, so we use 24 hours as the average.\nIn fact, there are many factors that contribute to how long a day is. Large earthquakes and tsunamis can literally extend or shorten a day by slightly altering the earth's rotation (this happened a few years back). While this could conceivably cause major problems, the suns gravity helps to put the earth back into its place.\n\nThere were 24 hours in a day. An hour is defined as 60 minutes, and a minute is defined as 60 seconds. 1 second was originally defined as 1/86,400 of a day. A day is well known to be the time taken for a celestial body to complete a rotation on its axis, and it was known that days are of varying length. So the "day" used for the definition of the second was the mean average length of days from 1750 to 1892.\n\nToday, a second is much more precise, as are the minute and hour. Clocks are nowhere near as accurate as the definition of a second, so that fraction of a day doesn't make much of a difference to them. Basically, how it works is that seconds, minutes, and hours are precise measurements of time. Even though they were initially based on the time in a day, that is no longer the case because a day is not precise.
972381
The moon is visible all over the world (not just the Western hemisphere).  In a 24 hour period the moon will be above the horizon for 12 of those hours.  Depending on where the moon is in it's orbit relative to the sun determines when it is visible in the day.  \n\nNew moon is when the moon is nearest the sun, and full moon is when it is furthest away.  That is why a full moon is really only visible at night.  \n\nFirst quarterr moon rises about noon and sets about midnight.  Last quarte moon rises about midnight and sets around noon.\n\nThe moon is brighter than the sky at daytime and so it is visible even against the blue sky of a sunny day.
862014
Since only one side of the moon is always facing the Sun, there would not be observed short-term positional change of the Sun at any fixed location. Hence a single time can be observed for the whole moon. This would have to be based on a reference point of time w.r.t. Earth.\n\nThe time on the space station is observed as GMT (Greenwich Mean time).
1012693
I'm not sure what he means by his explanation, but he's not totally off to think there would at least be a possibility of the longest 'day' not being adjacent to the shortest 'night'.\n\nAs measured from the Sun's local zenith to the next local zenith, solar days are not the same length of time (24 hours is just the average amount of time to get from noon to noon).  It takes longer to get from local noon to the next local noon at the solstices when the Earth is tilted directly toward or directly away from the Sun.  The shortest solar days (noon to noon) should be at the equinoxes.  (In other words, if there are more total seconds in the solar day at the solstice, then having the most daylight seconds doesn't necessarily mean having the shortest night time seconds).\n\nAdditionally, the Earth's orbit is slightly elliptical.  At perihelion (closest point to the Sun), the Earth is traveling faster and sweeping out a bigger angle per second.  That means the Earth has to rotate further to get back to noon the next day.  Solar days near perihelion are longer while solar days near apohelion (furthest from Sun) are shorter.  This is where your dad's argument starts to break down.  The Earth is at apohelion around the first week of July and at perihelion the first week of January.  In other words, there are more seconds in a solar day in the winter than there are in the summer.  The tilt of the Earth is more significant, so there are still more seconds in a solar day near the summer solstice than either equinox, even if the longest solar day (noon to noon) isn't in the summer.\n\nThe biggest reason his argument breaks down is sheer magnitude.  The variation in the length of a solar day is in seconds/day while the difference in the amount of daylight/darkness can be minutes/day (the amount of variation depends on a person's latitude)\n\nFor 2006, the longest daytime period will be on Jun 21, with the shortest nightime period being Jun 20 or 21 (the Naval Observatory's charts only list hours and minutes).
807753
. . also the moon rises about 52 minutes later each day/night. You can also see it during the day.\nThe phases are in constant motion. Waxing (getting fuller) and waning (getting smaller).\nDon't forget to check for Lunar Eclipse's. Try NASA.gov