I’ve been shooting Sun images so frequently lately that I’ve neglected the night. While a recent aurora was obscured by clouds (and my sleep schedule) here, and no Perseid meteors spotted (clouds and sleep), Moon put in a nice appearance. Our neighbor in space was very low in our southern sky the night of August 14, which was good and bad. It was good because it can be hard to observe objects high overhead. It was bad because lower to the horizon means more air — and turbulence — between the observer and astronomical objects than if they were overhead. A tripod-mounted telephoto lens and DSLR were used for the capture and a bit of post-processing sharpened things up pretty well.

One of the things I enjoy most when observing Moon is looking along the terminator — the divide between dark and lit areas — at features partly illuminated by, in this case, the rising Sun. Especially noticeable is the arc of light near the upper end of the terminator — the sunlit tops of the Jura Mountains, defining the Bay of Rainbows, off of the grand Sea of Showers or Mare Imbrium.