Just clear of the ridge

Sky Contours mirroring the skyline

Inveruglas, Saturday evening, 17 October 2026

At dusk the moon was already up over Loch Lomond, a waxing crescent sitting just above the skyline. The hills to its right took a higher bite out of the sky, and one peak closed that side of the view. On the water the moonlight broke into a short path. The jetty and the boat were only shapes.

A waxing crescent just above the dark ridge at Inveruglas, with a boat moored at the jetty on Loch Lomond. Wide dusk view over Loch Lomond, the moon low and the higher hill to its right.

Sky Contours, set to Inveruglas at 18:51, had the same picture. The moon was in the south, about 7° up, 41% lit. The rim of the plot is the skyline. It stays low toward the moon, which is why the moon is in the clear, and it rises to about 20° over to the west of north. Turn the plot so the moon sits where it sits in the photograph, and that raised rim is the dark hill beside it.

Sky Contours plot for Inveruglas at 18:51. The moon is low in the south and the skyline rises toward the west of north. Sky Contours moon card: waxing crescent, 41% lit, about 7 degrees up in the south.

The moon was too low to wash the whole sky. Near it the faintest stars would be a little harder to see, about magnitude 4.5. Away from it the sky stayed closer to 5.2, and overhead on a moonless night the plot puts the limit at about 5.8. The photograph and the plot agree. The moon is clear. The hills are what cut the sky.

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