Moon and Venus, June 15, 2010

My pictures of the Moon and Venus from this past Monday, June 14 have excited all sorts of interest, even among people who knew exactly what that bright "star" near the Moon was. So now I present pictures of the Moon and Venus taken about twenty-four hours later.


Note the dramatic difference in relative position of the Moon and Venus from one night to the next. Most of this difference is due to the Moon progressing along its orbit around the Earth, though Venus is moving in a way that is not difficult to note from night to night.


The Moon has moved to a position that made it impossible to photograph from the same location where I took the June 14 photos. Here I have positioned the two heavenly bodies so they appear to straddle the evergreen across the street.

If you get a chance, try to observe the positions of the Moon and Venus tonight. Before you go out to look, take a guess as to how far apart they will be, and then see how far off your prediction was!