The Moon & Venus & Castor & Pollux

Well, I may have missed one of the most beautiful conjunctions of the Moon and Venus last night, but that doesn't mean I couldn't see where they were tonight. First I decided to try to see both Venus and the Moon in daylight. This photo is from 7:54 PM, shortly before sunset. I had to punch up the brightness a bit, otherwise the jpegification of the large-format photo would render Venus invisible.

The Moon and Venus, 7:54 PM May 20, 2007

Venus is already pretty hard to see here - it's tucked into the extreme lower right corner. You may have to go to the enlarged version to see.

The Moon, Venus, Castor, and Pollux, 9:35 PM May 20, 2007

Here is the scene a little more than an hour and a half later. Now Venus is a lot more obvious, and the Moon is joined by Castor and Pollux*, the Gemini Twins! (Again, you may need to go to the large version to see them.) On June 1st and 2nd Venus will be in a line with these two bright stars.

Thanks to whim for the link to this blog which has an excellent photo of last night's conjunction!

*Not in that order. Pollux is on the left, near the top center of the image, and Castor is on the right.