Astronomy EssentialsToday's Image

See it! Young moon and Venus

Moon and Venus – June 15, 2018 – by Richard Lopez in California.
Abdulmajeed Alshatti wrote: “Country road with the crescent and Venus. June 16, 2018. Kuwait.”
Tony Lee caught the moon and Venus on June 15 and wrote: “… it was almost perfect as Venus and the moon were very bright in the darkening sky above Niagara Falls U.S.A. … This is a handheld image while being attacked by unseen biting insects!!”
No planet Venus in this photo, but a lovely crescent moon – June 16, 2018 – from Sandy de Lenerna in Sarasota, Florida.
Moon, Venus and the Beehive open star cluster (M44) of the constellation Cancer the Crab – June 16, 2018 – by Lunar 101-Moon Book.
Omar OK wrote: “Perfect weather for a great view from Setif – North Algeria. Venus and moon crescent encounter. June 16, 2018.”
Maggie Machinsky in New York City caught the moon and Venus on June 15. She said it was “a perfect summer evening.”
Jenney Disimon wrote: “Crescent moon 10.9 percent and Venus. Sabah, North Borneo. June 16, 2018.”
Tom Wildoner of Dark Side Observatory caught this image on June 15, 2018.
Notice the sky background is brighter here. That’s because – on June 15, 2018, when this photo was taken – the moon was lower in the sky, closer to the sunset. The photographer – Steven Sweet of Lunar 101-Moon Book – captured the moon near the bright stars Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini.
Venus and young crescent moon from Wisconsin on June 15, 2018. The moon is low in the sky, partly buried in clouds, and that’s why it appears reddish. Photo by Suzanne Murphy.
Anna Sassen in Porto Alegro-RS, Brasil caught the moon on June 14! On that night, it was an extremely young moon, very near the sunset. Because the moon was nearly on our line of sight to the sun – nearly between us and the sun – its lighted face was pointing mostly away from us.
Steve Scanlon Photography wrote on June 14, 2018: “This evening’s hard-to-catch sight: an extremely young moon setting over the Twin Lights of Navesink, Highlands, New Jersey. (2.2 percent illumination).”
View larger. | Gowrishankar Lakshminarayanan in New York City wrote: “A single exposure shot of the 2 percent waxing crescent resting in between the El Dorado towers was almost impossible to locate with bare eyes. If you see between the two towers there’s a tiny sliver of crescent moon almost bleached by the twilight after just half-hour after sunset.”
The June 14, 2018, moon was 32 hours old – that is, 32 hours from the time of new moon – when it passed over the West Coast of North America. Here’s the 32-hour moon from Steve Lightstone, in Sacramento, California.
Young moon of June 14, 2018, via Luba Guvernator. I believe this photo is from around Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, straddling the border of California and Nevada.

Bottom line: Photos of the young moon’s sweep past the brightest planet, Venus, June, 2018.

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Posted 
June 17, 2018
 in 
Astronomy Essentials

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Deborah Byrd

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