A Thin Crescent Moon

Crescent Moon taken on August 26, 2008

I took advantage of the clear skies and went observing on Monday night. I arrived at LVAAS at sunset and had about half an hour of viewing a thin crescent Moon. It was the thinnest crescent I've viewed through a telescope - thinner than the image above. I managed to identify a small piece of Mare Crisium and a few other craters but it was difficult. I was viewing through some tree branches - so the image was fading in and out - and the view was so limited that I couldn't find the usual landmarks (moonmarks?). 

Once I figured out what I was looking at I put away the lunar map and just enjoyed the view until it disappeared.

I then moved on to Venus. It was in a first-quarter phase which I had never seen before. That was cool, too. 

I moved around the sky a bit: the Pleiades, Aldeberan, Capella. Then I found M42, the Orion Nebula. This was my first time viewing this great sight. While it didn't look like the Hubble images (which are in color), it was still impressive. It took up the whole field-of-view in the eyepiece and I could easily recognize the shape. It is so hard to imagine just how big this thing is!

So I had another great time looking at the night sky. Let me know if you'd like to join me sometime.