The Thinnest Crescent

I was on my way to my astronomy meeting, and when I got to the end of our street, there was the thinnest of crescent moons, setting in the west. It was just stunning in its delicacy. I did a wide angle view, and then this close-up, and I like the closeup better, because you can see how thin the crescent is. There is a term we use to describe the appearance of the moon, called it's "age." I don't mean 4.5 billion years. which is the actual age of the moon, but rather how many days it has been since "new moon." New moon is when the moon is so close to the direction of the sun, that we can't seen the moon because it is daylight. Each day the moon moves 12 degrees away from the sun, and then we can begin to see it, first as a thin crescent, than at a quarter moon, then as a full moon. The moon in this photograph is not quite two days old. Please click on this to see a larger image with more detail.