Physics Photo of the Week
FEBRUARY 3, 2012
First Quarter Moon
On Monday, January 30,
2012 students Allison
Giles and Madeline
Miller photographed the first quarter Moon through
a Questar telescope using a digital camera. Even
though the Moon looks half-full, it is called the "first
quarter" because the Moon is one quarter (1/4) through its
orbit around the Earth in its monthly cycle. The angle
between the Sun, Earth, and Moon is 90 degrees or a quarter
circle.
At partial phase, as shown here, the craters of the Moon
are highly pronounced - especially near the "terminator" or
the edge of the illuminated portion. This is due to
the grazing angle of sunlight on the Moon allowing the
craters and mountains to cast long shadows. The edge
of the Moon against the sky (on the right side of the
photograph) is called the "limb".
When Allison took this picture, she inadvertently locked
the shutter release so that the camera snapped about 10
photos in rapid succession ("paparazzi" mode). I used
this to our advantage by adding all 10 of the digital images
to create a cleaner average.
A full Moon photo is shown below in an image made last 
September
12 by Josh Reiss, Andrew
Dutcher, and
Sarah Elliott using the same equipment. The
crater shadows don't show up at all in the full Moon image,
but the dark areas, called marias, are just as
prominent. The full Moon image also is noted for
highly visible rays emanating from the more recent
craters. The rays consist of debris that was scattered
in all directions by the catastrophic impact of a large
meteor. All of the visible craters on the Moon,
even the younger ones, are at least a million years old -
much older than the 400 years that people have been looking
at the Moon with telescopes beginning with Galileo Galilei
in 1609.
The Questar telescope used for these photos was a gift
to Warren Wilson College by Ralph Brown of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Physics Photo of the Week is published weekly during the academic year on Fridays by the Warren Wilson College Physics Department. These photos feature interesting phenomena in the world around us. Students, faculty, and others are invited to submit digital (or film) photographs for publication and explanation. Atmospheric phenomena are especially welcome. Please send any photos to dcollins@warren-wilson.edu.
All photos and discussions are copyright by Donald Collins or by the person credited for the photo and/or discussion. These photos and discussions may be used for private individual use or educational use. Any commercial use without written permission of the photoprovider is forbidden.
Click here to see the Physics Photo of the Week Archive.
