Will you see the very young moon on May 5?
(Credit: Roger Vail)
Monday, May 5, 2008.
After the sun sets in eastern North America today, there’s a chance to catch a razor-thin young moon less than 1/2 day past new moon.
You can’t see a new moon because it’s between the Earth and sun, and its dark side faces Earth. New moon falls at 12:18 Universal Time today. That 8:18 a.m. this Monday morning for eastern North America. But as the minutes tick by today, the moon is moving in orbit around Earth, pulling away from the sun along our line of sight.
The record for seeing a young moon presently belongs to Mohsen Mirsaeed, who in 2002 saw the moon 11 hours and 40 minutes after new moon. Evening dusk today marks the first time in years when it’ll be possible to spot a lunar crescent that’s under 12 hours old, but you have to be in eastern North America to catch it. There’s even a slim chance of someone spotting a record-setting young moon in eastern Canada, from the provinces of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island or Labrador.
As darkness falls across North America tonight, the moon will be aging – pulling away from our line of sight to the sun – becoming easier to see. From the west coast of North America, the crescent moon is only 15 or so hours past new. Still, to see this very thin crescent, you’ll need perfect sky conditions. You’ll see a fatter crescent in the west after sunset Tuesday evening – near the planet Mercury in evening twilight.
You’re always most likely to see the youngest of young crescent moons in spring. In the northern hemisphere, that’s during the months of March, April and May. In springtime, the thin crescent moon tends to stand most directly over the sun at sunset. Therefore, springtime crescents stand higher in the sky at dusk and set later after sunset.
In our Tonight’s Sky area, we tell you what other factors contribute to the youngest visible moon in years, and our almanac page tells you the sunset and moonset times for your sky.
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