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[Centaur]

Who will be first to spot the New Moon by naked-eye after its conjunction with the Sun on 2005 JUN 06 at 16:55 CDT?

This slender young crescent Moon, a day or two old, was traditionally referred to as the New Moon. On the day of conjunction our ancestors called it the Dark Moon. However, most modern calendar makers insist on labeling the conjunction day as that of the New Moon.

Since I began this series in 2004 March within several astronomical message boards, the overall champion is Navneeth (SN1987A) in Madras, India with a 2005 January sighting 24:51 hours after conjunction.

Please report your June observation within this thread, including location and time with zone. Even negative results would be interesting. Photos would be especially nice. No prizes, just bragging rights.

I've created a graphic previewing the western sky 30 minutes after sunset on June 7 as seen from Chicago's Adler Planetarium. Nevertheless, the diagram should be useful for most North American observers. To see it, click:

www.curtrenz.com/astronomical.html

Then click the small blue button for the "June New Moon Spotting Contest".

The graphic may be removed soon after June 7.

[Centaur]

Congratulations to Dave Mitsky who reported a spotting of the Moon aged a little more than 27:05 hours on several other message boards. Low clouds across the western horizon in northwest suburban Chicago prevented my repeating the early sighting I made last June. Below is Dave's report:


"I observed the very young crescent Moon, first with an 8x42 binocular and then with the naked-eye, shortly after 9:00 p.m. EDT (01:00 UT) on Tuesday evening, June 7. I took a number of photographs with my Canon EOS Digital Rebel and 18-55mm and 55-200mm EF-S zoom lenses. The Moon was fairly close to the horizon in the west-northwest, about 7 degrees to the lower right of Venus, and was eventually covered by some low clouds, which incidentally made for quite a colorful sunset. My location was a hilltop just west of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania."

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Well, for what's it's worth now, I did catch the crescent this evening by the lakefront. Chicago was in between two major cloud formations for about an hour and I took the opportunity to catch it in my scope. Pretty...