I finally have my astrophotography setup back together with a new camera and various accessories. Most amateur astronomers who are interestred in astrophotograpy ignore the Moon and try to image when its light is not washing out dimmer, deep sky objects. On the other hand, taking photos of the Moon is easy since it’s so bright and does not require long time exposures and complex image processing. The color in this image is a bit off as I am using a new color camera and still trying to get all the adjustments right. Unlike a DSLR, these cameras have way too many “knobs” to adjust color balance, exposure, contrast, etc.
Earth’s nearest neighbor goes through phases of illumination as its 28 day orbit reflects varying amounts of sunlight. Waxing of course means the Moon is headed toward full (the opposite of waning) and gibbous (the root word is humpbacked for some odd reason) means it appears to be getting larger as more and more of its surface is illuminated. Waxing gibbous is a phase between first quarter and full.
