Birds appear to fly across the moon in this stunning skywatching image.
Photographer VegaStar Carpentier took this photo in the early evening of Sept. 22, 2012 in Épernay, Champagne-Ardenne, France, using a Canon EOS 1000D, 300mm.
The moon is the brightest object in the night sky and takes 27.3 days both to rotate on its axis as well as to orbit Earth. We see the moon because of reflected sunlight and how much of it we see depends on the position of the orb in relation to Earth.
This moon is at first quarter or 50.5 percent of illumination. Although the moon appear half-lit to us, astronomers still call it a quarter moon. This is because only a quarter of the moon's surface can be seen with the naked eye from Earth.
Editor's note: If you have an amazing skywatching photo you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, please contact managing editor Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com.
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![A time-sequence composite of the August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse In this case, time runs from left to right, from the last filtered partial phases shot, through unfiltered shots of the rapidly changing last glimmer of sunlight disappearing behind the advancing Moon at “Second Contact,” forming “Baily’s Beads, to totality at centre] The sequence continues at right with the Sun emerging from behind the Moon in a rapid sequence at “Third Contact,” followed by two post-totality filtered partials to bookend the total eclipse images The C3 limb had a beautiful array of pink prominences.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/o3egecNDBubCJmmEbLT3Db-1280-80.jpg.webp)
