Lunar Phase: Waning Crescent (8.6%)
Moonset: 3:09 AM Eastern Moonrise: 6:13 PM Eastern
Sunrise: 5:56 AM Eastern Sunset: 8:59 PM Eastern
Location: Site 13, Kejimkujik National Park
Date: 2017-07-20
Time: 8:15 AM – 9:50 AM Eastern
Temperature: 19° C - 20° C
Equipment: Visual + Binoculars 15x70
Magnification: x15
Transparency: very good (5)
Seeing: very good (5)
Clear cloudless sky with no wind. Began looking for this thin crescent shortly after 8 AM. We made the mistake of searching low on the skyline before finding it in the SE and at about 65° - 70° above the horizon. Very difficult to find because of the clear skies and very bright sun.
With the binoculars, we could make out a dark smudge at about 8’clock. What was truly interesting was how there really wasn’t a terminator like there is at night. I could still make out the remaining part of the Moon, but it was more like a gradual diminution of light from the ‘bright’ crescent to the adjacent areas. The blue area of the Moon just blended gradually into the blue sky. Given the early hour, the sky was a beautiful blue!
Jerry had set up the binoculars on a tripod for my viewing as I couldn’t find it in my 10x30 IS. He then set up a camera on a tripod and captured a couple of beautiful pictures of the waning crescent; first picture was at 8:41 AM. We spent about an hour looking at the Moon until we could no longer see it in the brightening sky.
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