Crescent Moon Occults the Pleiades, 4/8/08

The following three images document the 3-day old moon occulting M45 (The Pleiades). The photos were taken in Burlington City while overlooking the Delaware River. The moon is setting over the Burlington-Bristol Bridge and the Pennsylvania night skyline, between 9:45 and 10:00 p.m. Each image zooms closer in on the event in question. The first two use a telephoto lens at different settings; the first is wide and the second zoomed all the way in. Some wispy clouds can be seen - it is NOT the nebulosity around M45! The third photo was taken through my 9.25" Celestron SCT, and is a mosaic of a few photos in order to capture as much of M45 as I could (a star or two are out of field) and also some detail on both the overexposed bright crescent portion and the underexposed dark earthglow portion.