Last Quarter Moon - April 25, 2011

This image of the Moon was taken at 10:50 am on April 25, 2011. The Last Quarter Moon rises around midnight and sets around noon, so it's visible during the daytime in the morning.  With a telescope, craters are visible mostly along the Moon's terminator (the boundary between light and dark).  Near the middle of the Moon, you can see the craters Copernicus (right) and Kepler (left), as well as some bright rays extending away from their centers.  The larger dark areas are called mare.

Taken with a Tele Vue-85 telescope and Lumenera 2-2 camera.  Image processing with Registax 6 and Photoshop CS5.