The Da Vinci Glow
Image Credit &
Copyright:
Giorgia Hofer
A 26 hour old Moon
poses behind the craggy outline of the Italian
Dolomites in this twilight mountain and skyscape.
The one second long exposure was captured near moonset on March 30.
And while only a
a sliver
of its sunlit surface is visible, most of the Moon's disk can be seen by
earthshine as light
reflected from a bright planet Earth illuminates the lunar nearside.
Also known as the Moon's ashen glow, a description of earthshine
in terms of sunlight reflected by Earth's oceans illuminating
the Moon's dark surface was written over 500 years ago by
Leonardo da Vinci.
Of course earthshine is just the most familiar example of
planetshine,
the faint illumination of the dark portion of a moon by light reflected
from its planet.