Earthshine – The Amazing Sky

April 9, 2019

The Waxing Moon of Spring

Spring is the season for Earthshine on the waxing Moon.

April 8 was the perfect night for capturing the waxing crescent Moon illuminated both by the Sun and by the Earth.

The phase was a 4-day-old Moon, old enough to be high in the sky, but young enough – i.e. a thin enough crescent – that its bright side didn’t wash out the dark side!

In the lead photo at top, and even in the single-exposure image below taken earlier in a brighter sky, you can see the night side of the Moon faintly glowing a deep blue, and brighter than the background twilight sky.

Four-Day-Old Moon in Blue Twilight — The 4-day-old waxing crescent Moon on April 8, 2019 in a single exposure when the Moon was still in the bright blue twilight. Even so, the faint Earthshine is just becoming visible. This is with the 105mm Traveler refractor and 2X AP Barlow lens for an effective focal length of 1200mm at f/12, and with the cropped-frame Canon 60Da at ISO 400, in a single 1/8-second exposure.

This, too, is from sunlight, but light that has bounced off the Earth first to then light up the night side of the Moon.

If you were standing on the lunar surface on the night side, the Sun would be below the horizon but your sky would contain a brilliant blue and almost Full Earth lighting your night, much as the Moon lights our Earthly nights. However, Earth is some 80 times brighter in the Moon’s sky than even the Full Moon is in our sky.

Four-Day-Old Moon with Earthshine — The 4-day-old waxing crescent Moon on April 8, 2019 in a blend of short and long exposures to bring out the faint Earthshine on the dark side of the Moon and deep blue twilight sky while retaining details in the bright sunlit crescent. This is with the 105mm Traveler refractor and 2X AP Barlow lens for an effective focal length of 1200mm at f/12, and with the cropped-frame Canon 60Da at ISO 400, in a blend of 7 exposures from 1/30 second to 2 seconds, blended with luminosity masks from ADP Pro3 extension panel in Photoshop.

Unlike the single image, the lead image, repeated just above, is a multi-exposure blend (using luminosity masks), to bring out the faint Earthshine and deep blue sky, while retaining details in the bright crescent.

Once the sky gets dark enough to see Earthshine well, no single exposure can record the full range in brightness on both the day and night sides of the Moon.

Waxing Moon, Mars and the Taurus Clusters — The 4-day-old waxing crescent Moon on April 8, 2019 with it below Mars (at top) and the star clusters, the Hyades (at left, with reddish Aldebaran) and Pleiades (at right) in Taurus, and set into the deep blue evening twilight. This is with the 135mm Canon telephoto at f/2.8 with the Canon 6D at ISO 400, in a blend of 7 exposures from 1/4 second to 8 seconds, blended with luminosity masks from ADP Pro3 extension panel in Photoshop, to prevent the Moon from being too overexposed while retaining the stars and blue sky. The camera was tracking the sky.

April 8 was a great night for lunar fans as the crescent Moon also appeared between the two bright star clusters in Taurus, the Hyades and Pleiades, and below reddish Mars.

It was a fine gathering of celestial sights, captured above with a telephoto lens.

April 8 Sky

This show the chart I used to plan the framing, created with StarryNight™ software and showing the field of the 135mm lens I used.

The chart also shows why spring is best for the waxing Moon. It is at this time of year that the ecliptic – the green line – swings highest into the evening sky, taking the Moon with it, placing it high in the west above obscuring haze.

That makes it easier to see and shoot the subtle Earthshine. And to see sharp details on the Moon.

$The 4-day-old waxing crescent Moon on April 8, 2019 exposed for just the bright sunlit crescent, revealing details along the terminator. This is with the 105mm Traveler refractor and 2X AP Barlow lens for an effective focal length of 1200mm at f/12, and with the cropped-frame Canon 60Da at ISO 400, for a single exposure of 1/60 second. This is not a stack or mosaic.$

The 4-day-old waxing crescent Moon on April 8, 2019 exposed for just the bright sunlit crescent, revealing details along the terminator. This is with the 105mm Traveler refractor and 2X AP Barlow lens for an effective focal length of 1200mm at f/12, and with the cropped-frame Canon 60Da at ISO 400, for a single exposure of 1/60 second. This is not a stack or mosaic.

After the sky got darker I shot the crescent Moon in a short exposure to capture just the bright crescent, included above in two versions – plain and with labels attached marking the major features visible on a 4-day Moon.

If you missed “Earthshine night” this month, mark May 7 and 8 on your calendar for next month’s opportunities.

Clear skies!

July 29, 2016July 30, 2016

Moon and Star Conjunction

Moon and Aldebaran (July 29, 2016)

The waning Moon shone near the bright star Aldebaran in the dawn sky.

This was a beautiful sight this morning, before dawn on July 29. The crescent Moon, its night side illuminated by Earthshine, shone just below the brightest star in Taurus.

We are currently in 3-year period when the Moon’s path is taking it near or in front of Aldebaran every month. However, most of these occultations or conjunctions are not well-timed for any particular location. And many involve the too-brilliant gibbous or full Moon.

But this morning the timing and Moon phase were perfect. From my longitude on Earth in Alberta, the Moon passed closest to the star just before the sky was getting too bright with dawn. Having them set against the deep blue twilight was perfect.

From farther east the Moon would not have appeared as close to Aldebaran as this before sunrise. From farther west the Moon and star would have appeared much lower in the sky at closest approach.

TECHNICAL:

For this image I shot 6 exposures, from 2 seconds for the Earthshine, twilight sky colour and stars, to 1/125th second for the bright crescent. I then stacked, aligned, and blended them together using luminosity masks – masks that hide or reveal parts of the image based on the brightness of the scene. You can see them in the Photoshop screen shot – Click on the image to enlarge it.

How do you create these masks?

• Turn off all the layers except the one you want to create a mask for.

• Go to Channels and Command/Control Click on the RGB Channel.

• That automatically selects all the highlights.

• Go back to the image layer and then hit the Add Mask button down at the bottom of the Layers panel (the rectangle with the black dot in it).

• Done. Repeat that for each image layer.

More traditional high dynamic range or “HDR” stacking left odd colour fringing artifacts and double images on the slowly moving Moon, despite applying what is called “de-ghosting” and despite using a mount tracking at the lunar rate. I tried merging the images with HDR, but it didn’t work.

A nifty Photoshop action from the Astronomy Tools set by Noel Carboni added the diffraction spikes.

I shot all images with the 130mm Astro-Physics refractor at f/6 and the Canon 60Da camera at ISO 400.

September 10, 2015

Dawn Worlds

The waning crescent Moon joined Venus and Mars in the dawn sky.

I blogged about this conjunction a few days ago, and here is the real thing.

On the morning of September 10 the waning crescent Moon gathered near bright Venus and much dimmer but redder Mars (at left) in the dawn sky.

Venus and Mars have both moved into the morning sky, where they will begin a series of conjunctions with the Moon and with Jupiter, now just emerging from behind the Sun, over the next two months. This gathering is just the start of the dawn planet dance.

For the technically minded, this is a high-dynamic range stack of 5 exposures to accommodate the large range in brightness between the sky and Moon, and to preserve the earthshine on the “dark side of the Moon.”

I shot this with the Canon 6D and 135mm lens at f/2 and at ISO 800 in a set of 8, 4, 2, 1 and 0.5-second exposures, blended with HDR Pro in Photoshop using 32-bit mode of Adobe Camera Raw.

April 17, 2015April 17, 2015

Heads Up! – Dual Conjunctions in the Spring Sky

On the evening of April 21 the waxing Moon shines near Venus, while Mercury appears near Mars.

Say goodbye to the winter sky, as Orion and Taurus sink into the western twilight. Joining them is an array of planets, and the Moon.

Look west on April 21 and you’ll see the waxing crescent Moon near brilliant Venus, with both above the Hyades star cluster and the bright star Aldebaran in Taurus.

The thinner Moon will appear below Venus the night before, on April 21, while on April 22, the waxing Moon, then a wider crescent, will sit well above Venus.

If you have an unobstructed view to the west also look for the pairing of Mercury and Mars low in the twilight. You might need to use binoculars to pick them out.

Mercury is just beginning its best evening appearance of the year for the northern hemisphere. So if you miss it April 21, you have another couple of weeks to find it in the evening sky.

Waxing Moon Amid the Hyades (Telescope)

On the nights around April 21, also look for Earthshine lighting the dark side of the Moon. You can see the night side of the Moon because it is being illuminated by sunlight reflecting off the Earth, shining brightly in the lunar sky.

The above image is a view of Earthshine from a month ago, on March 24, when the Moon appeared in the Hyades star cluster.

Enjoy the spring sky adorned by Venus as a bright “evening star,” and joined by the Moon on April 21.

March 24, 2015March 24, 2015

Moon Amid the Hyades

The waxing crescent Moon shines amid the stars of the Hyades cluster.

I shot these on the evening of March 24 when, from western North America, the Moon appeared superimposed in front of the sprawling Hyades star cluster in Taurus.

The main image at top is with a 200mm telephoto lens and takes in most of the Hyades and the bright red star Aldebaran at lower left. Unfortunately, it also includes a blue lens flare from the brilliant and overexposed crescent, a tough element to “photoshop” out.

The image is a high dynamic range stack of 3 exposures. Even so, I purposely overexposed the Moon to bring out the stars and their colours.

This close up of the Moon includes fewer Hyades stars, but with the Moon centred I was able to avoid the lens flare. It’s an HDR stack of 5 exposures, to capture details in the sunlit crescent as well as on the dark side of the Moon lit by blue Earthshine.

These are the last telescopic shots from my winter in New Mexico, as the telescope and mount gets packed up tomorrow, in preparation for the trip back to Canada.

It’s been a fabulous winter of sky shooting, with some 500 gigabytes of images shot, processed, and archived!

March 22, 2015March 22, 2015

Moon and Venus at the Place of the Mountain Gods

The Moon meets Venus over a New Mexico pond in the heart of the Apache homelands.

This was the scene on Sunday evening, March 22, 2015, as the waxing crescent Moon appeared near Venus in one of the best conjunctions of the spring.

Earthshine lights the dark side of the Moon, while Mars also appears, below the Moon-Venus pair.

For these images I set up on the picturesque grounds of a resort called the Inn of the Mountain Gods, near Ruidoso, New Mexico, a ski resort in winter and a cool mountain retreat in summer.

The resort, run by and on land owned by the Mescalero Apache, honours the spirits of the four sacred mountains on Apache land: Sierra Blanca, Guadalupe Mountains, Three Sisters Mountain and Oscura Mountain Peak.

As the resort brochure states, “These four mountains represent the direction of everyday life for our Apache people. Our grandparents would often speak of the place called White Mountain. It was there that the creator gave us life and it is a special place.”

I shot this image a little later in the evening when the sky was darker, stars were beginning to appear, and thin clouds added haloes around the waxing Moon and Venus. I think the clouds added a photogenic touch.

March 16, 2015March 16, 2015

The Waning Moon of Morning

The waning crescent Moon shines with sunlight and Earthlight in the morning sky.

This was the Moon before dawn this morning, March 16, 2015. It’s the waning crescent Moon four days before the New Moon of March 20, when the Moon will eclipse the Sun.

This view shows the sunlit crescent and the dark side of the Moon also lit by sunlight, but sunlight reflecting off the Earth first. The night side of the Moon is lit by blue Earthshine.

To record details in both the bright and dark sides of the Moon I shot six exposures, from 1/160th second to 6 seconds, combining them in a high-dynamic range stack with Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw for the tone-mapping.

I shot it through my 92mm refractor, shown here in a beauty shot from the evening before.

$TMB Refractor & Mach1 Mount$

The upcoming solar eclipse by the Moon is visible as a partial eclipse from much of northern Europe (but not from North America, except from a teenie bit of Newfoundland), and as a total eclipse from a path running up the North Atlantic.

The only landfall for the total eclipse path are the Faroe Islands and the Arctic island of Svalbard.

For more details about the eclipse see The Great American Eclipse.

I’ll be missing this eclipse, the first total solar eclipse I’ve chosen to sit out since 1995, 20 years ago. My next total solar eclipse will be August 21, 2017. At least, that’s the plan!

Clear skies to all my eclipse chasing friends, on land, on the sea, and in the air on Friday morning.

December 26, 2014December 26, 2014

Both Sides of the Boxing Day Moon

The dark and bright side of the Moon appear together in a portrait of the 5-day Moon.

This was the waxing crescent Moon on Friday, December 26 – Boxing Day.

In this image you can see both the bright crescent directly lit by the Sun, and details in the dark side of the Moon lit only by sunlight reflected off Earth – Earthshine.

I used a composite of 5 exposures from 8 seconds to 1/50 second to capture both sides of the Moon, with the images merged in Photoshop’s HDRPro module.

I shot the images through my TMB 92mm apo refractor using the Canon 60Da camera, on a very clear night in New Mexico.

Happy Boxing Day to all!

December 22, 2014December 22, 2014

Venus and a Silvery Moon over Silver City

The thin Moon and Venus hang over the lights of Silver City, New Mexico.

Tonight, December 22, the 24-hour-old crescent Moon shone a binocular field to the right of brilliant Venus. I caught both hanging in the sky over downtown Silver City, set in stunningly clear twilight.

Venus is just beginning what promises to be a spectacular evening appearance in the western sky over the next few months, as it climbs higher.

The Moon, on its shorter cycle around the sky, is emerging into the evening sky for the end-of-year holidays. Watch it wax into a quarter Moon, then to Full, over the next two weeks. Tonight, the glow of Earthshine was prominent lighting the dark side of the Moon.

I shot this from east of the city, using a 135mm telephoto on my Canon 60Da camera.

Happy holidays to all!

November 29, 2014November 29, 2014

A Stellar Occultation by the Moon

The double star Beta Capricorni disappears in a wink behind the Earthlit edge of the Moon.

The evening of Wednesday, November 26 provided a bonus celestial event, the eclipse of a double star by the Moon.

The star is Beta Capricorni, also known as Dabih. I had a ringside seat Wednesday night as the waxing Moon hid the star in what’s called an occultation.

Dabih is a wide double star, composed of a bright magnitude 3 main star, Beta1 Capricorni, and a fainter magnitude 6 companion, Beta 2 Capricorni. You can see both in the still image view at top. Their wide separation makes them easy to split in binoculars.

In reality, they are separated in space by an enormous gap of 21,000 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. By comparison, distant Pluto lies an average of just 40 times the Earth-Sun distance.

With such a wide separation Beta1 and Beta2 take an estimated 700,000 years to orbit each other.

Beta1 is a giant orange star 600 times more luminous than our own Sun and 35 times bigger. Beta2 is a blue subgiant 40 times more luminous that the Sun.

Adding to the complexity of the system, Beta2 is also a close double, while Beta1 is a tight triple star, making for a quintuple star system.

The movie below records each occultation, first of the fainter blue Beta2 star, then of the brighter Beta1 star.

Each occultation happens in an instant to the eye. However, stepping through the video shows that the brighter star took 4 video frames to dim, about 1/10th of a second. Whether this is real, due to the star’s giant size, or just an effect of the twinkling of the atmosphere, is questionable.

Technical notes:

The still photo is a “high dynamic range” stack of 12 exposures from 4 seconds to 1/500th second, taken with the Canon 60Da camera at ISO 400, to capture the huge range in brightness, from the dark side of the Moon and stars, to the bright sunlit crescent. I used Photoshop’s HDR Pro module to stack the images and Adobe Camera Raw in 32-bit mode to do the tone-mapping, the process that compresses the brightness range into a final image.

I shot the video with the 60Da camera as well, setting it to ISO 6400, and using its video mode to record real-time video clips, both in HD 1920×1080 for the wide-field “establishing shots,” and in its unique 640×480 Movie Crop mode for the close-ups of the actual occultations. Those two clips appear as inset movies. I edited and processed the clips, plus added the titles, using Photoshop and its video capabilities.

All were shot from New Mexico with the TMB 92mm refractor at f/5.5.

November 25, 2014November 25, 2014

The Dark Side of the Moon in Twilight

The waxing crescent Moon shines amid the stars and deep blue twilight.

This was the scene last night, as the two-day-old Moon reappeared in the evening sky as a thin crescent.

The Moon looks full because most of the side facing us was brilliantly lit by Earthshine, sunlight reflected off the Earth and lighting the Moon. Here, only the thin crescent at right is directly lit by the Sun.

This was a particularly bright example of Earthshine, likely because so much of the northern part of the Earth is now covered with cloud and snow, making Earth even more reflective than it usually is.

To capture this scene through a telescope, I shot a set of high-dynamic-range exposures, from long to short, to capture the huge range in brightness from the dayside to the darkside of the Moon. The long exposure also captured the stars in the deep blue twilight of a clear New Mexico sky.

April 30, 2014

New Mexico New Moon

The thin waxing crescent Moon returned to the evening sky tonight, seen here in the deepening blue of a New Mexico evening.

I’m in Silver City, New Mexico (altitude 5900 feet) for a few days and nights, checking out places to spend next winter, under clearer and warmer skies than back home … and with rarely any snow to shovel.

This was the scene tonight, on the ranch road with one of the prime property choices – astronomers check real estate locations by day and night!

The crescent Moon is lit by Earthshine as it sits amid the deep blue twilight. The stars of Taurus show up flanking the Moon, with the Hyades at left and Pleiades at right.

This image is a high-dynamic range stack of 6 exposures from 2 to 20 seconds, to capture the ground detail without blowing out the Moon. Lights from an approaching pickup truck nicely lit the trees during the final longest exposure.

For the technically minded, I stacked the images using Photoshop CC HDR Pro, then “tone-mapped” them using Adobe Camera Raw in 32 bit mode.

The sky was hazy all day and evening, from wind-blown dust common to the area. Fierce southerly winds were whipping up dust all day, which hung in the sky all evening as well.

The sunset was a golden yellow from all the dust in the air. Once it got dark the sky lacked the ideal desert transparency, muting the zodiacal light I saw last night from the Chiricahuas.

Not every night is perfect in the high desert!

February 26, 2014February 26, 2014

Moon and Venus in the Winter Dawn

This was the scene at dawn on a cold winter morning as the waning Moon appeared near Venus.

The temperature was only -15° C, so rather pleasant compared to the -30° C it has been the last couple of mornings. On February 26, I awoke at 6 a.m. and ventured into the cold winter morning to shoot the conjunction of the crescent Moon beside Venus above the snowy landscape of southern Alberta.

This was not a particularly close conjunction, at least not for us in North America. But its location low on the southeast horizon made the scene attractive and photogenic.

I aimed the camera the other way, to the southwest, to catch bright Mars (at right near Spica in Virgo) and Saturn (at left in Libra) above the abandoned farmhouse. The stars of Scorpius shine at left.

So we had three planets visible at dawn this morning, a fine sight to start the winter day.

March 12, 2013

Comet PANSTARRS Spectacle — With the Waxing Moon

This was the night for Comet PANSTARRS! How often do we get to see a view like this, with a comet sitting beside a thin crescent Moon. Spectacular!

Again tonight, about a dozen visiting and resident Canadians gathered for a roadside star party north of Rodeo, New Mexico, to view the comet and Moon setting together over the Chiricahua Mountains. It was a stunning sight and made for a picture postcard image. The two set almost simultaneously, with the tail of the comet and “dark side of the Moon” lit by Earthshine the last to disappear behind notches in the mountain ridge.

And tonight, with the comet higher, it was visible to the naked eye for the first time, but only just – the sighting was made easier because you knew exactly where to look.

The Moon was just 3o+ hours old, so appeared as a very thin crescent. The entire disk of the Moon was visible, the rest lit by Earthshine, sunlight reflected off the Earth. In the clear New Mexico air, the Earthshine was easy to see even in the bright twilight. But adding in the comet made for a once-a-lifetime view.

As soon as they set together, we all cheered and applauded, almost like at an eclipse. It was a memorable night, the kind you always hope for from a comet. PANSTARRS performed tonight!

December 19, 2012December 19, 2012

The Down Under Waxing Moon

To northern eyes this looks like an old Moon in the morning sky, but this is really a young Moon in the evening sky – seen from Australia.

This was the waxing crescent Moon a few nights ago in the early evening sky. Because I took this from a latitude of 30° south, the Moon is turned over almost 90° from the way northern hemisphere viewers would see it from Canada or the northern U.S.

For this image, I shot ten exposures from 1/30s to 15 seconds and merged them into one “high dynamic range” composite using Photomatix Pro software. The result is an image with detail in both the bright sunlit crescent and in the dark side of the Moon visible here lit by Earthshine, sunlight reflected off the Earth. The resulting “HDR image” compressed the wide range of brightness into one image, to show the Moon the way your eye would see it but that photo technology is still not capable of recording in one exposure.