how to navigate to the moon?

[Orbit]

More often than not, the moon not directly visible when launching. When checking the map, you can see where the moon is located. But I find it hard to find out which way to steer to head to the moon. An option to mark a target on the Navball would be handy, but that\'s not in the game. Any tips for navigating towards the moon, without losing a shitton of fuel while experimenting which way is to the moon?

[leopardenthusiast]

I\'m assuming you can get into a circular orbit here:

First of all, get into your circular orbit. Altitude doesn\'t really matter as long as Kerbin still appears much, much larger than the Mun.

Wait for the mun to rise over the horizon, and burn prograde while looking at the map.

It should show when you\'re going to be captured by the Mun\'s SOI once you\'ve burned prograde enough, so cut your engines once that appears.

Wait until you\'re at your periapsis around the Mun, and burn retrograde until your apoapsis appears.

Congratulations, you are now in Munar orbit.

[maltesh]

Agreed.

Don\'t worry about how long it takes to swing your spacecraft around to get it pointed in the right direction. Unless your ship is a /ridiculously/ unweildy monster, you\'ll have time. The Mun is close, and its Sphere of Influnece is nearly 5000 km across. You\'ll have time.

If you\'re in the Demo version, and don\'t have the patched conic view on the map screen, don\'t worry if it looks like you\'re going to get to the Mun\'s orbit long before the Mun gets there. The Mun is close, its SOI is huge, it\'s moving faster than you are at that point, and Kepler\'s Second Law means that you\'ll be hanging out near apoapsis for a long time. There\'s no need to circularize; it just wastes fuel and prolongs the trip. Be patient, and wait for it to sweep you into its SOI.

THis is generally the most fuel-efficient way to get to the Mun, and a fairly quick, which is why it\'s generally so popular. Been doing it since there was a Mun to go to, and have missed the Munar SOI only once with this method, due to my own carelessness. (It\'s also the method that Harvester mentioned in one of the the first poss he made talking about the upcoming Mun)