This morning I took my first peek outside at about 0625, about twenty-five minutes before the Sun would rise at 0649, and could see an interesting arrangement of clouds that would be the foreground for a beautiful sunrise. I took several panoramic images as the show progressed. After a while I could see that the sunrise point would be straight off of the balcony at about 65 degrees azimuth.

At about 0638 I noticed a very thin waxing crescent moon (28.1 days) maybe less than 10 degrees elevated directly above the point that I thought would be the sunrise point. This was probably the oldest moon that I have ever seen.

The crescent was oriented so that the “horns” were exactly horizontal. I surmised that this was the combined effect of the nearly vertical ecliptic on the horizon near the solstice point, and the moon being situated up to 5.5 degrees north of the ecliptic. I checked in Stellarium and found the moon to be 4.25 degrees above the ecliptic.

I also noticed in Stellarium that Venus was located between the Moon and Sun, and maybe 2 degrees above the horizon at the time that I noticed the Moon. I did not notice Venus, because the sky that close to the horizon was probably much brighter than even Venus.