The transparency in Karachi was extra-good since a couple of days, so today’s 31 hour old Moon seemed game for a crescent hunt. I asked Ebrahim and Ramiz to come over to the FFO (informal name for my home). Both were very interested, but Ebrahim could not make it due to certain reasons. Ramiz, however, was at my place about 20 minutes before sunset and both of us happily went to the roof.
The transparency was indeed very good, with few clouds and a tad bit of haze low on the horizon. Ramiz managed to capture the Sun just before it hid behind North Nazimabad’s hills. He had looked up the Moon’s position earlier and informed me that it would be about 4 degrees south-west of Jupiter. We knew we could easily catch Jupiter about 20 minutes after sunset, but we nevertheless tried finding it in the still-too-bright sky – to no avail. Off we went to offer maghrib salah.
Once we were back on the roof, I immediately caught sight of Jupiter. Put the trusty 7X35 to my eyes and there was the very slender crescent Moon next to it! Now I could plainly see the Moon without optical aid too AH. Ramiz hadn’t been able to see either Jupiter or the Moon yet, but after a few pointers he too easily nailed both with his 8X40 binoculars. We rejoiced, and then texted friends to have a look at the thin crescent. This Moon is the second thinnest new crescent I and Ramiz have seen, at 1.48% illuminated and 30.75 hours past new. The crescent of Safar 1432 which we saw on 5th January 2011 was 1.43% lit and aged just 28 hours past new.
And then it was fotugraphy time.
Written By: Zain Ahmed