See before 6pm to see Venus...

hamster · 03-01-2006 5:00pm #1

Just looking south and looking at venus (south west of moon close to the horizon)... through a pair of ordinary binos... I see a real nice cresent like that on the moon tonight. Awww!

That's really nice. See it tomorrow night if you don't see it this evening. Cut off point is really just before six.

Flukey · 06-01-2006 12:34am

It's getting harder to see it recently. I have seen it as a crescent before through my telescope, and it is something great to see. But hey, isn't that the joy of astronomy?

hamster · 06-01-2006 7:12pm

Yup it is! I didn't expect to see the venus crescent that well and frankly I was amazed to see it in a pair of 10x50s. The same way that I could see Jupiter moons. Did you see anything from the Quads meteor shower the other night? I had a look but I have a bit of light pollution in that direction.

Flukey · 07-01-2006 2:01am

I did see a few meteors, although I wasn't looking for any. I just happened to be looking out the window at the time. Venus was good before Christmas, but it seems harder to see now, with a smaller timeframe too. I saw it as a crescent a year or two ago, when it was a lot higher up. I've seen Jupiter a few times recently when I have been getting up, around 7am. As I was getting up for work, there is no time to be setting up a telescope. All I could do was a quick glance with the good old reliable naked eye. In the coming months it will be up at a more suitable time, so we can see before we go to bed, not when we are getting up!

The ISS is passing over us again at present. Check www.heavens-above.com for times.

Trouble · 07-01-2006 7:22am

I was at the cliffs of Mohair on new years day and put a euro into one of those telescope thingys that they have to look at the cliffs, visiblity was quite poor and by a mistake managed to see Venus as a crescent. I am not very astronomically minded (so apologies for my question in advance) but why was it like that? It was getting late in the day about 5ish It was quite pretty actually!

Flukey · 07-01-2006 11:48pm

It is much the same as to why the moon looks like a crescent at certain times. It is the angle we are at as we look towards it and the Sun reflects off it. Being so close to the Sun, it is always bright. However, also being so close to the Sun means you only see it for a while after sunset or a while before dawn. On the Cliffs of Moher, it would have been towards the west, setting, following the Sun. At other times you see it as a morning object, bright just before the Sun rises and outshines it.

See before 6pm to see Venus...

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