Taking the Stage

The annular eclipse this past Sunday was the talk all over. The photos were interesting and some very exciting. What made the eclipse especially interesting to me was that for the first time in over a decade I had the opportunity to witness the physical birth of the moon.

Every lunar cycle the moon is in line between the Earth and the Sun in an event known as conjunction. Conjunction is when the Earth-Moon line has a zero angle with respect to the Earth-Sun line. Once the moon continues on in its orbit the angle between those two lines grows and is called Elongation. Once the Elongation exceed the Danjon Limit of 7° the amount of the surface of the moon is large enough to reflect enough light back to the earth that we can see the moon as a crescent.

This takes place in every lunar cycle. However most months, due to the inclination of about 5° of the plane of the moon's orbit around the Earth with respect to the plane of orbit the Earth has around the Sun, the moon either passes "above" or "below" the sun in the sky and conjunction occurs in invisibility. We only know it has occurred when the new crescent becomes visible. On Sunday though, I watched the moon physically cross through conjunction and photograph the exact instant that it happened. This made looking for the new crescent moon even more rewarding this month. It was also very challenging. From the point of conjunction until sunset the next day, the moon was only 25.75 hours old making it incredibly thin and difficult to find. I almost did not see it. Even with a 55 minute lag behind the Sun on Monday evening, I did not see it until 20 minutes before it set, sighting it a 26.3 hours old, one of the youngest I have in my portfolio.

Your thoughts on this month's moon is most appreciated.