The third quarter moon isn’t very high in the sky until the wee hours of the morning, so it’s not often photographed, at least by astronomers as lazy as I am. However, when you have a wee one, it’s not uncommon to be awake in those wee hours, and if you are, and the weather cooperates, you can get a shot or two. Here’s one from Monday morning:
In this image, the craters Albategnius and Hipparchus are situated rather prominently just south of (below) center, near the terminator. Both of these craters have younger craters overlying them, Hipparchus one at the northern rim, near the 1 o’clock position, and Albategnius on the southwestern rim, around 8 o’clock (not far from the central peak). Hipparchus also has a young crater lying just outside its southeastern rim, just before 6 o’clock in this image.
The funky nature of the moon’s motion means that around the equinox, like now, the third-quarter moon is as high in the sky as it can get. A season later, around the solstice, is the best time to observe the full moon, because it’s near the zenith then, rather than lower down in the south (for us northern hemisphere luna-tics, anyway). And next march, the first quarter moon will be up near zenith. Poor midsummer solstice; that’s when new moon rides high.