Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Thursday, August 15th.  The sun rises at 6:45.  It’ll be up for 14 hours and 2 minutes, setting at 8:47.   The moon, 1 day past first quarter, will set at 1:43 tomorrow morning.

The moon now is slightly gibbous.  The term gibbous comes from Latin meaning having a hump or humpbacked.  In binoculars or a small telescope look to the upper left where the great Sea of Showers or Mare Imbrium is being revealed by the advance of sunrise.  The flat walled plain, actually a crater called Plato is off the top of Imbrium.  It is circular and 61 miles in diameter.  It looks oval to us because of the curvature of the moon.  Below or south at the other edge of Imbrium, just coming into sunlight is the marvelous crater Copernicus with it’s triple central peaks.  It’s 56 miles in diameter.  In a good enough telescope one can see that the crater walls appear terraced.  Copernicus is 2 miles deep.

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

Addendum

The moon a day after first quarter on August 15, 2013. Created using Virtual Moon Atlas.

The image also includs the craters Tycho and Clavius craters in the southern highlands.