Gallery 1 - Astronomical   >   Solar System   >   The Moon   >   Last Quarter Moon

A last quarter moon looks half-illuminated. It rises around midnight, appears at its highest in the sky at dawn, and sets around noon. We often see this phase of the moon in bright daylight. It is called last quarter because the moon is three-quarters of the way around in its orbit of Earth. One interesting thing to think about when looking at the last quarter moon is you are looking towards Earth's forward direction of motion in orbit around the sun.

Image Data : 0.4 seconds
Location: Sunglow Ranch, AZ
Equipment: Ceravolo 300 Astrograph at f/4.9
Mount: Astrophysics 900
Camera: Apogee U16M with Astrodon SII filter
Software used: MaxIm DL, Photoshop CS2
Image Aquisition: Peter
Image Processing: Debra