Four Percent Crescent Morning
At 239,000 miles away, this Four Percent Crescent Moon is a pretty cool image. Being a fingernail shaped crescent with edges distorted very slightly by the atmosphere. Taken 5:10AM, 7 days prior to it’s being published here. I did manage to finish it the same day, write the narrative your reading and publish it to post today. I’ve built over 1800 of these narratives as of this posting.
Using a terrestrial optic to do astronomic work no mounted to concrete can be wrought with problems. It was windy at the time and my tripod (my truck) was a rocken. (you could knock if you must) This was taken while the 28 inch long camera/lens was resting on my Raptors Drivers Window. No tripod. No sharpening, just as it came out of the camera minus a little crop. This is a full resolution 2×3 feet aspect image. Seeing into the shadow happens occasionally but not on this one. Usually you see it with just a little atmospheric ice acting like a projection screen to the light that is in that shadow. Pretty inky black sometimes.
The best shows are during the lunar eclipses where that dark shadow area is visible in the “earthshine”. Seeing Details on/in Craters still is better right on the “terminator” (where the shadow meets the light). You can see the long shadows better which helps resolve the topography. Contrast is higher at the terminator.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands
Title: Four Percent Crescent Morning