Moon Phases Sequence:  1.34 Days Old

Figure 1. New Moon, 1.34 Days Old (16.4 degrees from sun), September 28, 2000, 7:29 PM, PDST.  Nikon Coolpix 990 digital camera, with 3x Telephoto Converter lens, full zoom, f/4.0, average of two 2-second exposures, ISO 400, manual focus, timed shutter release, using tripod.

The moon passed ~5 degrees north of the sun 1.28 days earlier, and at the time of this photo the moon was 16.37 degrees from the sun.  I'm assigning an age of 1.34 days, based on the calculation:

    Phase Age = (Angular distance from sun [degrees]) / (12.19074939 degrees of motion per day)

The daily motion is an average only, as it varies several percent due to the eccentricity of the moon's orbit.

Click on the image to view a larger version, then look closely and notice that the "dark" side can be faintly discerned.  This is due to the fact that the half of the earth facing the moon (the Pacific Ocean and Asia) is fully lit by the sun and is reflecting sunlight back to the unlit side of the moon that is facing us.  You can barely see mare/highland features on the dark side.
 

Figure 2.  The same new moon, and Venus (on the left), using a normal lens; 2-second exposure, f2.5, ISO 400.

Photographing the moon when it is so "young" is difficult, as this normal lens view shows.  Since you need a dark sky to even see the moon, it can only be photographed after sunset.  But when the sun sets, the moon, being close to the sun, is necessarily low in the sky.  On this occasion, there were high cirrus clouds to contend with, but they at least made a more colorful setting.  Venus can be seen as the brightest "star" on the left.  (My focus was off, causing Venus to appear as a small disk.)

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This site opened:  September 29, 2000.  Last Update:  September 29, 2000.