Have you ever heard the term “gibbous moon”, and wondered what it means? A gibbous moon is one of the phases of the Moon, when the size of the illuminated portion is greater than half but not a full Moon.

The period between a first quarter moon and a full moon is known as a waxing gibbous moon, because the illuminated region of the Moon is increasing from day to day. After it becomes a full moon, but hasn’t reached the last quarter, the Moon is called a waning gibbous moon.

This image was taken as a single frame with a Canon 40D DSLR and 8" F/8 Ritchey Chreiten Astrograph. 000.25th sec. @ ISO 100.