<![CDATA[The determination of the beginning of the Hijri month is often aided by digital imaging technology, but the quality of the crescent images produced often faces the challenge of very low contrast. The faint light of the crescent is difficult to distinguish from the still bright background of the evening sky, exacerbated by atmospheric conditions and camera sensor noise that reduce visual quality. To improve the image, many still perform manual contrast enhancement. On the other hand, the selection of contrast enhancement methods is often without a measurable basis. This study aims to conduct a comparative performance evaluation between three contrast enhancement methods: Histogram Equalization (HE), Adaptive Histogram Equalization (AHE), and Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE). The goal is to identify the most suitable technique for improving the quality of crescent images, the specific application of which has not been widely explored. A total of 30 crescent images were tested through a quantitative evaluation approach using the Mean Squared Error (MSE) and Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) metrics. The results show that CLAHE provides the best performance with the lowest average MSE (89.97) and the highest PSNR (30.92 dB), demonstrating the best ability to balance contrast enhancement and distortion reduction. In contrast, the HE and AHE methods produce high MSE and low PSNR values, indicating significant visual distortion. Thus, CLAHE is recommended as the most reliable method for improving the quality of crescent images based on contrast in digital technology-based observation systems. For further research, it is recommended to explore the automatic determination of CLAHE parameters and the use of additional evaluation metrics such as SSIM (Structural Similarity Index Measure).]]>
