I caught a beautiful crescent moon rising this morning. Skies were clear (as they’ve been for a number of days recently) and I had to get up early. I quickly checked out the planets Venus & Mercury and then aimed the scope towards the moon. The moon had not yet risen yet, so I went a got a quick refresh of my coffee.

I caught the moon rising through the trees lining the ridge to the southeast. As it rose above the obstructions, I could see a wonderful example of Earthshine. Earthshine is the illumination of the dark side of the moon with light reflecting off of the Earth’s surface. It’s quite spectacular if you’ve not noticed it before.

I have two images for you today. Both were created from the same original images. Only the post processing is different. The images were (1) 1/8 second exposure at ISO100. This was intended to capture the illuminated portion of the moon. (2) was an 8 second exposure also at ISO100. This was intended to pull out a bunch of detail in the Earthshine portion of the moon.

The first, posted to the left was created using RegiStax to combine the two images. It seems to show more detail in the Earthshine portion of the moon. The second, is a little darker, but shows more detail in the illuminated portion of the moon. Which do you think is better? I was hoping to more effectively combine the best elements of the two, but was left with a couple of compromise shots because of my limited skills in image processing. This WILL be remedied as I proceed in this endeavor.