At My Window
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In the quiet hour before dawn, there are stirrings about the pond. Leaves fall silently past our window. The visiting flock of ruddy ducks, roused from their slumber, gather quietly in a round restless formation, for what I imagine to be their morning head count. A crescent moon slowly tops the distant hill.
This is a “waning crescent moon,” photographed on October 25th at 6:23 am. Just seven percent of the disk was illuminated by the direct rays of the sun. The rest was faintly lit by earth’s glow, and appeared as a lighter gray against a dark gray sky. As the moon climbed higher, that soft gray merged into the inky blackness of the night sky. Peering closely, I can almost see the fabled maria or “seas” in the gray area. There were no stars visible when I took this photo.
The next night, October 26th, was host to a dark, invisible “new moon,” and the night after that, October 27th, a “waxing crescent moon” — similar to the “waning,” but with the crescent on the right side of the orb. Alas, these two nights were overcast, and observation wasn’t possible.
(If you’re interested, you can view all the October 2011 moon phases at Moon Phase Calendar, and see an illustrated explanation at Understanding the Moon Phases.)
A neighbor tells me that Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, begins on the dark night of October 26th (on the western calendar). Also called Deepavali, it is among the greatest of Hindu festivals, and celebrates the new year on the lunar calendar.
You may notice a little pixelization at the tips of the crescent; that’s normal at this scale. If you click on the photo, a larger, cleaner image will appear.
This is truly moving. Makes me want to get up more often during the night and dawn when I miss all this beauty! I think I’ll start setting my alarm clock….