Observation 9-11-10

Last night around 8:30 I saw the moon. It happened to be in the waxing cresent, as the moon was getting larger. Looking in the Southwest of the sky about 21 degrees up at Riverview High, the moon was clearly visible. I had the chance to look through numerous telescopes and see the surface of the moon. On the moon, there were many craters, big and small. Around the moon there seemed to be a halo, I think it might be the clouds or the earth's atmosphere. I also saw Venus at about 8:40. Same place but Venus was much lower then the moon. Probably about 18 degrees. Looking at it through a microscope I saw that it was in it's cresent phase. It was easily distinguishable since it was the brightest object in the sky.