A waxing crescent moon is pictured one day after the new moon in the western sky Wednesday night, Feb. 18 shortly after 7 p.m., with approximately 3% of earth’s natural satellite reflecting the sun. More of the moon will become visible in the days to come as the moon’s orbit carries it closer to the sun. On Feb. 24 it will reach its first quarter phase (half lit) and the moon will be full on March 3 before transitioning back to black as it continues its rotation around the sun.
Something else to note in this photo is the speck of light pictured next to the moon, even though it is millions of miles away. That speck is believed to be the planet Mercury, even though Venus was also in the neighborhood when this photo was taken. One other theory is that the secondary light is a manmade satellite — possible an Iridium — but research across multiple sources on the internet indicate it is most likely Mercury.
This photo was made with a Canon R6 camera at a focal length of 400mm using a shutter speed of 1/25 seconds, an aperture of f/8.0 and an iso of 25600.
The image was cropped to draw the viewer closer to the light, but it is otherwise unedited.