Lunar X and V March 6 2025 |
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| The terminator (the border between night and
day) on a partial Moon phase creates many interesting phenomena
thanks to the interplay between light and shadow along mountains
and craters of the Moon. While many lunar features along the
terminator stand out in almost 3D splendor, other interesting
phenomena can also occur as our minds appear to recognize shapes
caused by this interplay. Specifically, when the waxing Moon is between 6 and 7 days "old" (that is the number of days since New Moon), lunar gazers might spot a couple of light-and-shadow figures that look like the English letters "X" and "V". I had an opportunity to observe and image these phenomena the night of March 6. Encouraged by an article I read about these features from Astronomy Magazine, I thought I'd try shooting a time lapse of the Terminator to show the evolution of the "X" and "V" as the Sun rises over these regions. The preview image was taken early in the evening (5:40PM Eastern Standard Time. Which was 22:40 UTC), showing the X and V shapes early during the appartion (the X is still mostly in shadow). Hover over the image to see where along the terminator the X and V shapes are. Click the image to see in full size image (it will open in a new tab or window). To see a full-size version of the annotated image, please click here. The sharpest image of my sequence was taken at 8:40PM EST (1:40AM UTC), and can be seen by clicking here. The X, while still visible, is almost completely in daytime and might take a minute to see. An animated GIF showing the changes to the terminator across my imaging session (from about 5:40PM EST to 9:01PM EST) can be seen here (45MB). |
| Date imaged: March 6, 2025 from 5:40PM EST to 9:01PM EST |
| Location: West Chester, Ohio |
| Exposure Details: 26 total images captured at 5-minute intervals. Each "image" is a stack of the best 25% - 50% of 250 video frames captured. Capture software: FireCapture Stacking software: AutoStakkert!4 |
| Equipment Used:
Optics: Astro-Physics Stowaway (92mm refractor) with a Celestron Ultima Barlow Mount: Astro-Physics AP1200GTO Camera: ZWO ASI678MC |
| Acquisition Software : FireCapture |
| Processing Software: AutoStakkert!4, IMPPG (image sequence alignment for animation), Photoshop CS5, PixInsight NoiseXterminator, MaximDL (animation generation), VirtualDub (create animated GIF from video). |