Crescent Moon

July 26, 2003

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Provided and copyright by: David Darling, Lunar Transient Phenomena Research
Summary authors & editors: David Darling

The above photo was taken July 1, 2003 (9:46 p.m. Central Daylight Time) over Sun Prairie, Wisconsin and shows the crescent Moon and earthshine -- the darkened portion of the Moon's disk faintly illuminated by sunlight reflected from Earth. The bright feature on the western edge of the Moon is the crater Aristarchus. Over the centuries, this crater has been seen, even with the naked eye, shinning in the earthshine region, giving rise to stories of stars being seen on the face of the Moon.

The photograph was taken using an Orion AstroView 120ST EQ Rich Field Refractor telescope, with eyepiece projection, 22mm eyepiece, and Sony digital camera DSC P71.

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