Where’s the moon? Waning crescent

Martin Marthadinata caught this very slim waning crescent moon – 1% illumination – at 5 a.m. on June 23, 2017 at Savana Bromo, a natural park near the active volcano Mount Bromo in Indonesia.

A waning crescent moon is sometimes called an old moon. It’s seen in the east before dawn. This month’s old moon swept past the brightest planet, Venus, in a spectacular display on June 20. Since then, the moon has been showing us less and less of its lighted side each morning, and rising closer to the sunrise.

New moon will come on June 24, 2017 at 02:31 UTC; translate to your time zone. In other words, for us in the western hemisphere, new moon will come today, and we likely won’t see the moon again in our sky until it sweeps through the new phase and returns again to the evening sky.

Unless someone tries very hard to spot the June 23 moon, the last old moon sightings in the Americas were likely on June 22. That’s when Karl Diefenderfer in Quakertown, Pennsylvania caught this image.

Because the moon is nearly on a line with the Earth and sun again, the day hemisphere of the moon is facing mostly away from us once more. Over the past several mornings, we’ve been seeing only a slender fraction of the moon’s day side: a crescent moon.

As the moon orbits Earth, it changes phase in an orderly way. Follow these links to understand the various phases of the moon.

Four keys to understanding moon phases

Where’s the moon? Waxing crescent
Where’s the moon? First quarter
Where’s the moon? Waxing gibbous
What’s special about a full moon?
Where’s the moon? Waning gibbous
Where’s the moon? Last quarter
Where’s the moon? Waning crescent
Where’s the moon? New phase

Moon in 2017: Phases, cycles, eclipses, supermoons and more

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/GLfilJ

Martin Marthadinata caught this very slim waning crescent moon – 1% illumination – at 5 a.m. on June 23, 2017 at Savana Bromo, a natural park near the active volcano Mount Bromo in Indonesia.

A waning crescent moon is sometimes called an old moon. It’s seen in the east before dawn. This month’s old moon swept past the brightest planet, Venus, in a spectacular display on June 20. Since then, the moon has been showing us less and less of its lighted side each morning, and rising closer to the sunrise.

New moon will come on June 24, 2017 at 02:31 UTC; translate to your time zone. In other words, for us in the western hemisphere, new moon will come today, and we likely won’t see the moon again in our sky until it sweeps through the new phase and returns again to the evening sky.

Unless someone tries very hard to spot the June 23 moon, the last old moon sightings in the Americas were likely on June 22. That’s when Karl Diefenderfer in Quakertown, Pennsylvania caught this image.

Because the moon is nearly on a line with the Earth and sun again, the day hemisphere of the moon is facing mostly away from us once more. Over the past several mornings, we’ve been seeing only a slender fraction of the moon’s day side: a crescent moon.

As the moon orbits Earth, it changes phase in an orderly way. Follow these links to understand the various phases of the moon.

Four keys to understanding moon phases

Where’s the moon? Waxing crescent
Where’s the moon? First quarter
Where’s the moon? Waxing gibbous
What’s special about a full moon?
Where’s the moon? Waning gibbous
Where’s the moon? Last quarter
Where’s the moon? Waning crescent
Where’s the moon? New phase

Moon in 2017: Phases, cycles, eclipses, supermoons and more

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/GLfilJ