July 9, 2013

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Awesome in Blue

LPOD-Jul9-13.jpg
image by Thierry Legault, Paris, France

Thierry is one of the world's best lunar and planetary imagers. As evidence I recommend that you browse through some of his wide-screen lunar images or perhaps one showing an astronaut taking a spacewalk. Today's blue LPOD is exceptional for it shows a thin lunar crescent with a calculated lunar age of exactly zero. The reason a crescent is visible at all is that the Moon is 4.4° from the Sun, a tiny amount, but enough to make a picture just barely possible. Thierry's website shows the special sunshade that helped incease contrast to make the Moon visible - after stacking 4000 images. I don't think we learn anything about the Moon from images like this, but the challenge is great and the accomplishment awesome.

Chuck Wood

Related Links
Thierry's website of astonishing images
Another extreme crescent, and yet another

Yesterday's LPOD: Unstoppable

Tomorrow's LPOD: Resurrecting a Historic Observation



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