Wednesday 22 January 2020

Darker side of the moon



This is not a trick photograph. I did nothing to manipulate this picture except to crop the image and sharpen it. While outdoors to take photographs of the waning moon this morning, I was quite surprised to notice in the viewfinder that the darker part of the moon surface could be seen, but only barely, due to what is called "earthshine": light from the earth's surface shining and dimly lighting up the moon. You can just about make out the surface features on the moon!

Normally, I wouldn't have been able to see this in my pictures because the sunlit portion would have over-powered the darker surface but because the crescent was so thin there was not enough light to do just that. So here it is, our smiling moon on the 22nd of January 2020 at 6.08am. P.S. Chinese New Year is only three days away....


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