On Friday, February 27th Venus and the Moon treated us to another nice conjunction. It had been cloudy all week and I didn't think the sky would be clear for this conjunction. On Friday I was pleasantly surprised to have an nice crisp clear night to view the conjunction. What a beautiful site it was. The pictures do not do justice.
A few interesting facts about this conjunction.The Moon conjuncts Venus nearly every month, but NASA reports that this encounter is somewhat unique:
(1) Venus is at maximum brightness: magnitude -4.6. The planet is twenty times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. It is so luminous that it can actually shine through thin clouds and cast subtle shadows on the ground.
(2) As seen from North America, the Moon-Venus separation is only a little more than 1o. Stick up your thumb and hold it out at arm's length. Venus and the Moon will fit comfortably behind the thumb-tip. Tight conjunctions like this are the most beautiful of all.
(3) Not only is the Moon a crescent, but so is Venus. A small telescope pointed at the glittering planet will reveal a slender 20%-illuminated disk.
A few interesting facts about this conjunction.The Moon conjuncts Venus nearly every month, but NASA reports that this encounter is somewhat unique:
(1) Venus is at maximum brightness: magnitude -4.6. The planet is twenty times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. It is so luminous that it can actually shine through thin clouds and cast subtle shadows on the ground.
(2) As seen from North America, the Moon-Venus separation is only a little more than 1o. Stick up your thumb and hold it out at arm's length. Venus and the Moon will fit comfortably behind the thumb-tip. Tight conjunctions like this are the most beautiful of all.
(3) Not only is the Moon a crescent, but so is Venus. A small telescope pointed at the glittering planet will reveal a slender 20%-illuminated disk.
Venus and the Moon do a dance over Pocatello
A 2.5 second exposure. Notice the "Earthshine". You can see this with the naked eye in a dark setting.
About 6X magnification.
I was able to locate a really nice picture which was taken with a little more "magnification" than I was set up for. It shows the cresent of Venus matching the Moon which is really cool.
I found this picture on the "Astronomy Picture of the Day". The photo was taken by Drew Sullivan.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html
Click on the photo to see the 20% cresent on Venus
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