Waxing Moon Over Scicli

From the photographer: “The crescent moon over the city of Scicli, a monumental baroque city, whose historic center has been awarded the title of World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2002. A 2-day waxing moon shows through ashen light even its part not directly illuminated by the sun. The ashy light is a phenomenon that affects the Moon during the first and last phase, that is, when it has a very thin segment of an illuminated disk. In this case it is easy for the light of the Sun to be reflected from the Earth towards the Moon, illuminating a portion of the surface in shadow. This phenomenon was intuited by Leonardo da Vinci and then more fully explained by Galileo Galilei. Click the second photo to see a vertical view of the same scene.”

Technical data: Nikon D800, Sigma ART 35mm f/1.4 @f/5.6, 4 sec, ISO-800 (for the main image), Tamron 100-400mm f/4.5-6.3 @135mm, f/7.1, 4 sec, ISO-1250 (for the secondary image)