Moonrise, moonset, and midnight fighting in the ... dark?

Argh! I've been writing my story "A Far Sun" in earnest since January (2008). Because I can, and because in the story the phases of the moon (and the relative light emanating therefrom) are important, I've been keeping track of where the moon is and what phase it's in.

And gotten it all wrong.

No, it's not because my moon phase calculator is wrong, it's because the "calculator" is visual and I cannot seem to fathom that a dark circle means the moon is "new" and a light circle means the moon is full. So, I'm off by two weeks in the story. Exactly. As I said: ARGH!

Actually it's not that much of a problem since no one (in the story) cares what date or day of the week it is. Moving forward (or backward) two weeks does have an impact on the weather, however (since the protagonists arrive sometime in late March/early April) but of course I can fudge the temperatures and the dates that trees begin to leave and flowers begin to bloom.

Two weeks forward is my current plan. Going back two weeks places my protagonists in a position to be cold and perhaps even deal with snow. Moving forward (a whole month swing) means the weather will be warmer and really bad weather (i.e., snow) much less likely.

Why do I even care? Well, when the story goes out into the woods and the protagonists are walking and camping, it really doesn't make sense that the big battle in the middle of the night should happen right when there's a new moon. It's dark on these nights. People are rather unlikely to see much in such dark, so describing what goes on from the POV of an observer doesn't exactly work.

Why correct the error, since no one knows what the moon phases will be in the year 2297? OK, that's a good question. But trust me, someone will check, and it's a detail I'd rather get right, than stupidly wrong. So you ask, what are the moon phases in 2297? Well, find them here. You can find a really accurate sunrise/moonrise/moon phase calculator here. It only does 185 days at a time, but that's good enough.