system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
We get more daylight during summer and less during winter. Does the amount of moonlight change depending on year?

Say comparing an equal phase moon from June and December.
gpt
The other answers here are incorrect, because they're not considering the combination of 1) the importance of different phases to the amount of moonlight received by Earth 2) where in the sky those phases would appear at various seasons.

When the Moon is close to full, it will appear on the opposite side of the sky as the Sun. That means that in summer when the Sun passes high in the sky and is above the horizon for a greater number of hours, that night the full Moon will pass low in the sky and be above the horizon for a fewer number of hours. Similarly, in winter, when the Sun passes low in the sky and is above the horizon for a fewer number of hours, that night the Moon will pass high in the sky and be above the horizon for a greater number of hours.

When the Moon is close to new, it will appear on the same side of the sky as the Sun. The means that in summer, both the Sun and New Moon will be above the horizon longer and pass closer to overhead. In winter, the Sun and New Moon will both be above the horizon for fewer hours and pass lower in the sky.

At first glance, it looks like that should all balance out over a one month set of complete moon phases. However, what's important here is that the the Moon is much, *much* brighter when it's near full than near new. As a result, we get much more moonlight during winter, since that's when the Full Moon will be above the horizon much longer and pass much closer to overhead.

**TL;DR**: We get more moonlight during winter.