It is always a little breathtaking to spot a young moon a day or two past new. Such was the case tonight - it was new moon about lunchtime yesterday, so tonight the 29-hour-old moon was easily spotted in the twilight. And while the palm trees are supposed to make you jealous of our normally warm winter weather, Tucson is suffering a cold snap! It was just a couple degrees above freezing when these picture were taken, and it is supposed to be near 20F for a low - cold for us! The local news is filled with stories to protect your plants and keep pipes from freezing, normally not a worry when the temps only drop a couple degrees below freezing... By the way, in taking these photos, to keep moon and trees in focus, I used exposures up to 3 seconds at F/16 for the depth-of-field to keep both close to focus...
While there are no bright evening stars in the western sky, the Moon is not alone! The planet Mars is still hanging out low in the west and is still spotted if you look for it. Shown here above the palm at left, it still has a tint of orange to it, but is about as far as it can get from us way across the solar system, over 210 million miles away. It will drop further into the solar glare into invisibility in a few more weeks... But in the meantime, enjoy the clear skies the cold weather brings and keep those eyeballs skywards!
It is always a little breathtaking to spot a young moon a day or two past new. Such was the case tonight - it was new moon about lunchtime yesterday, so tonight the 29-hour-old moon was easily spotted in the twilight. And while the palm trees are supposed to make you jealous of our normally warm winter weather, Tucson is suffering a cold snap! It was just a couple degrees above freezing when these picture were taken, and it is supposed to be near 20F for a low - cold for us! The local news is filled with stories to protect your plants and keep pipes from freezing, normally not a worry when the temps only drop a couple degrees below freezing... By the way, in taking these photos, to keep moon and trees in focus, I used exposures up to 3 seconds at F/16 for the depth-of-field to keep both close to focus...
While there are no bright evening stars in the western sky, the Moon is not alone! The planet Mars is still hanging out low in the west and is still spotted if you look for it. Shown here above the palm at left, it still has a tint of orange to it, but is about as far as it can get from us way across the solar system, over 210 million miles away. It will drop further into the solar glare into invisibility in a few more weeks... But in the meantime, enjoy the clear skies the cold weather brings and keep those eyeballs skywards!
good shot, saw that moon last eve. very lovely low in the western sky when out and about. brrrrrrrr feels like pinetop in the old pueblo. had to break out the "layers"
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