A Very Young Moon

A very young moon captured by Gemini Photographer Joy Pollard. 8/26/14 19:19:55 HST. The inset shows a close up of the moon.

Working in a place as spectacularly beautiful at Mauna Kea, every now and then I get the chance to image something new.  In this case very new!  The thin sliver of a crescent moon was roughly 15 hours old when the Sun’s reflected photons excited my camera’s CCD.  Engrossed in setting up for the night’s time-lapse sequence, for the current “COLOSSOS” run, I looked up to see this on the horizon. It took my breath away (and not just because of the thin air)! I was torn, I didn’t want to interrupt the already-in-progress time-lapse sequence; I had another camera, but it was back inside (and I couldn’t abandon the time-lapse rig).  So, I radioed the night-crew, and as luck would have it, Rosemary Pike, a visiting student observer from the University of Victoria, BC (and Co-Investigator for COLOSSOS), found a spare moment to deliver the backup camera, exclaiming, “… what is this, a sack of bricks!”  With twilight fast fading, the vanishing moon was a challenge to image – I ended up taking over 50 shots, hoping just one of them would come close to capturing the moment!  – Joy

Image without inset. Exposure 1/40 sec, f2.8, ISO 800, 70mm, taken with a Canon EOS Mark II.

Closeup image of the “sliver moon” just before disappearing below the clouds.