Phases of the Moon

Photos here show the Moon in different phases on nights spread over a period of two weeks. Photos were digiscoped in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA at latitude 42.30 deg N, longitude 83.77 deg W. The camera, a Nikon Coolpix 4800, was hand held against the 20-60X zoom eyepiece of a spotting scope normally used for birding, my Bausch & Lomb Elite 80 ED. Magnification for all photos was 60 power.

Photos shown here are in "natural" color, i.e., just as obtained with my optics with no adjustments other than exposure. No unsharp masking or other editing has been done. Gray ("black and white") versions of these same photos have also been prepared. [gray photos]

I do not yet have any photos of crescent Moons. I will add these sometime in the next several weeks.

For your own lunar photography project see tools for determining moonrise and moonset times at the U.S. Naval Observatory web site.

See illustrations and discussion of lunar phases at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_phase.