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 is used the same as sun set, and in most contexts has nothing to with the phase of the moon or sun. The phrase “it was well past moonrise” indicates that the moon is at it’s peak in the sky. To say that it indicates anything else would show a lack of understanding of how the sun and moon move around the sky. A phrase like “the big bright moon was imposing on the sky” would show the reader that the moon is a full moon and the largest thing in the sky. (That is unless we’re talking about the day-night cycle on a different planet, then I take back everything.)