The Moon on February 13, 2024

As late afternoon turned into dusk this evening, I kept my eye to the south to see if a beautiful crescent Moon would stay ahead of looming cloud cover to the west. Sure enough, the Moon had slipped behind that cloud cover—or, depending on your perspective, the clouds had advanced over the Moon—by the time I set my Questar outside.

When there are holes in that cloud cover, though, past experience has told me to stay with it. That’s exactly what I did this evening. I’m glad I did so because I managed to capture this halfway decent image:

When I shot this image, I had my exposure compensation set to underexpose by a stop, something I haven’t done much in the past when shooting the Moon at this phase. I find the light meter gets confused when it sees the Moon as a thinner crescent, and it chooses exposure settings that ultimately make much of the illuminated portions of the Moon’s surface appear overexposed.

In Canon’s Digital Photo Professional, I brightened the exposure by 0.17 stops, increased contrast a bit, increased shadow brightness a bit more, and decreased highlights. Even with my exposure compensation set to what it was, that latter adjustment was necessary to prevent the Moon’s limb from appearing blown out.

Looking at the image, though, I do have to admit that it looks a touch flat. Imaging the Moon closer to first quarter is easier and more satisfying, I must say.