Dr John Stockton wrote:
JRS: In article , dated Thu, 9
Feb 2006 07:47:54 remote, seen in news:uk.sci.astronomy, Paul L Money
posted :

In article , Dr John Stockton
writes

According to "February Night Sky" in my Monday newspaper, however, the
Moon will be new on the 29th of *this* month. "Times" readers will,
however, "see" it on the 28th.

No wonder more people are turning to my Nightscenes 2006 book instead of
the Times version then as New Moon occurs on February 28th at 00:31UT
:-)


Now you are being unfair to The Times. They had it correctly (Mon Jan
30, p.54, "The night sky in February") as 28d 01h [Michael J Hendrie
gives it to the nearest hour, and uses GMT.


According to my my sun & moon web page
http://www.aphayes.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/sun_moon.html?Place='Cheltenham'&Lat=51.88&Long=-2.12&TZ=+1&TZname='BST'
for Cheltenham in UK new moon is 28:02:2006 at 00:29. As I've had
correspondence with religous groups who use the moon as a

calendar I doubt if they would visually observe the first fraction of
the iluminated moon for some time

after that depending on the local light pollution and horizon.