22 April 2009: Moon and Venus Conjunction
An occultation of Venus by the waning crescent moon early in the morning was visible in much of the western part of North America this morning. I didn’t get up early enough to see it; in fact, it was so cloudy last night that I didn’t even try to find out if and when it might visible from my location.
However, when I went outside this morning about 6:30 am, I did see a beautiful pairing of Venus and the crescent moon in the dawn twilight (click on the smaller image to see a larger version):
A little later, I thought I would try to use the moon as a guide to see Venus in the daytime. About 7:25 am (about 25 minutes after sunrise) I scanned the sky for the area where I thought the pair should be. The moon was thin enough that even it was hard to in in the bright morning sky, but after a few minutes, I was able to focus on it and with the aid of the moon as a guide, could now easily see Venus clearly in sky during the day, as I had done previously.