Just a phase we're going through

My congratulations to whoever thought up the idea of having a small exhibition in the Galleria at the Mall of the Emirates about Ramadan, Islam and the lunar calendar.

Unfortunately, someone made a serious series of errors with the 'phases of the moon' part of the display. What a terrific idea: a series of photographs of the quarters of the moon, each with a little explanatory plaque.

It might have been nice if the captions corresponded both to the pictures and to reality. Observed from the UAE at least, the waxing crescent illuminates the right-hand side of the lunar disc, not the left. The waning crescent illuminates the left-hand side (wi' a wanion!) Instead of showing two half-moon photos, the display has used two copies of the same image, with one of them inverted. This is appallingly obvious when checking the craters and seas on the illuminated side. I also suspect that the images have been created by some PhotoShopaholic blacking out different parts of copies of the same full moon image.

If the night sky isn't available to check, some correct moon images may be found here.

Running the photographs from either right to left or left to right would make sense, whereas putting up the images in a pseudo-random order does nothing for public education, which is presumably the main purpose of the display. Maybe it doesn't really matter and I'm fretting about nothing. But I would have thought that a culture that regards the lunar calendar in such high esteem would be very keen to educate the masses on such a significant subject.

If you're gonna do something, do it right!