This weekend offers two excellent opportunities to observe a very thin crescent moon at sunset.  It’s also a good time to capture some nice “earthshine” images and spot the planet Mercury.

Saturday evening, the new moon will be mere hours old – the thinnest of slivers – with it’s actual age depending upon your location and what time you are observing.  Sunday evening, the moon will be less than two days old – still a thin sliver – and will appear in close position with Pleiades and Mercury.

On both evenings, you’ll find the moon just above your WNW horizon.  On Saturday, Mercury appears above and slightly left of the Moon.  On Sunday,  Mercury appears closer to Luna, this time beneath it, with Pleiades in the middle to form a beautiful trio of objects both near and distant.

Using your binoculars, you can get a good look at that darker portion of the Moon – that region not illuminated by direct sunlight – known as “earthshine.”  We call this ashen-colored region of the Moon “earthshine” because it is the Earth’s own reflected sunlight that makes it visible.  Surprisingly, it was Leonardo Da Vinci, even before  Copernicus’ sun-centered theory, who first described the source of the moon’s illumination, including the secondary glow of earthshine.

Once you’ve browsed the lunar surface, have a look at Mercury.  You might notice a pinkish hue, and this is due to our own atmosphere, just as sunsets and a rising moon sometimes display a red or orange tint.  Of course, you’ll have to focus on Pleiades, as well.  This beautiful cluster is much more distant, but younger than either Mercury or the Moon.  The Pleiades cluster contains about three-thousand member stars, some one-hundred-million years old, and is positioned more than four-hundred light-years away in the constellation Taurus.  Even at that distance, this cluster is actually one of our galaxy’s closest.

Luna currently appears close to the Sun, following it into the horizon at sunset, so you’ll have to keep two things in mind.  One, use special care when observing anywhere near the sun and never ever look directly at the sun through unfiltered binoculars or telescopes.  Two, start your observations before full darkness sets in, else you may find the moon already too low from your location.

For local lunar calculations, I use an excellent program called Quick Phase Pro.  You can also check out the U.S. Naval Observatory for regional lunar information.  Both programs offer lunar rise/set/transit times, phase information, and lunar illumination.  The Quick Phase program offers a few more details, like phase age and historical data.

If you’ve never taken a picture of the moon or evening sky, this is a good time to give it a try.  Any camera should work fine; and remember, it’s not so much how accomplished an image appears, rather, its that you accomplish the effort of imaging.  For better results, take several pictures, changing your settings if your camera allows.

So, get out there this weekend and have a look at Luna; and if you do capture some images, share them with us.  We’d love to see your work.