Astronomy Picture of the Day

April's Moon and the Pleiades


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#71939 by @ 15.04.2005 00:00 - nach oben -
April's Moon and the Pleiades


Explanation:

After parting with the Sun
late last week, April's moon graced the early evening sky.

Its slender,
three-day-old crescent shares
this
lovely telescopic

skyview with the nearby
Pleiades
star cluster.

Here, the Moon's sunlit
crescent
is overexposed while the
lunar terminator, or boundary between lunar night and
day, is jagged with craters and mountains.

Lunar surface features can also be seen in the
dim lunar night illuminated
by earthshine - light
from sunlit planet Earth.

The sister stars of the Pleiades are grouped at
the right, but their alluring blue reflection nebulae, usually
highlighted in telescopic images of
the cluster, are washed-out in the much
brighter
moonlight.




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