Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Thursday, April 14th.  The sun will rise at 7:00.  It’ll be up for 13 hours and 25 minutes, setting at 8:25.   The moon, half way from first quarter to full, will set at 5:13 tomorrow morning.

The moon tonight is in its gibbous phase.  The word gibbous means hump backed.  At this phase the moon is severely interfering with the dimmer stars.  So looking at the moon with a telescope becomes a good option.  The moon will be bright and ruin any dark adaption your eye had before looking at it.  Remember the sun shines on the moon with the same strength that it does on the earth, since it’s at roughly the same distance from the sun as the earth.  The brightest spot on the earth facing side of the moon will be emerging into the lunar morning light this evening.  It will be showing that brightness in a few days, but now it is the crater at the upper left edge of the moon, just coming into light.  It is the crater Aristarchus.

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

The gibbous moon for April 14, 2011. Created using Virtual Moon Atlas.

The crater Aristarchus is moving into the morning lunar daylight.