Ramadan Mubarak!
Ramadan starts after sighting the birth of the new moon. That usually happens in Latin America first; or in other words, it happens in Morocco first before Arabia.
The moon does not favour one land over another, nor one race over another. I mean its visibility is for all, but it starts from the West first before the East.
All the Muslim traditional schools of Jurisprudence favour sighting the new moon over its calculation. For sighting belongs to any human being with a healthy vision, while calculation belongs to the realm of the specialist.
You could say it is a practical democratisation of worship based on this celestial event, if by democracy we understand “giving power to the reasonable and fair people”.
Nevertheless, there are some Muslim scholars who accept rigorous calculations as a valid approach.
But to our continued amazement, there are people in Arabia, who claim sighting of the new moon contrary to all natural laws of Astronomy.
It is in those lands that Abu Hamza Anas bin Malik claimed the sighting of the new moon, but no one around him could see it. A bright scholar called Iyyas, knowing that he was in the presence of a venerated but old man, approached Anas wiped his eyebrow in order to remove a white hair that was interfering with his vision, and then asked:
“O Abu Hamza, show us the location of the crescent moon!”
Anas kept looking and saying; “I do not see it!”.
This historical incident is related in Ansab Al-Ahsraf and other works.
The Middle East is the hardest place for pious people to survive. For they continually face people, not with hair on their eyes, but with locks on their hearts. Just look at what is happening to the Palestinians! But maybe you are one of those blessed people who can wipe over someone’s heart and make them healthy again! If it is, then you have a lot of work to do.
You may be in a position where you cannot sight the moon yourself, then you need to look for a reliable source, but preferably from the South West e.g. Latin America.
If you are still confused, it would be reasonable to start with an official sighting from Morocco.
“Look at the moon in the sky, not the one in the lake.”
Rumi