Category Archives: Astronomy

The Moon tends to look full when it’s still two or three days short – yet another lunar optical illusion.

Tonight we’re still 69-hours (three days) from the full phase, which will occur at about 16:57 PDT on Monday evening, June 29th.

Until then? Close enough for government work!

From top left to bottom right, Venus, Jupiter, the Moon, Mercury.

It was beautiful! And clear, fortunately. My daughter who lives down in LA had nothing but that coastal low cloud layer to look at.

Mercury got left out of the close-up, but the two-day old crescent Moon was a diamond!

Mercury is always elusive, and it’s nearing the furthest away from the Sun that it ever gets, but it’s been surprisingly easy to see this trip around into the evening sky.

Keep watching, they’ll be playing this dance for a few more days. If you don’t have clouds!

The Moon was New at 19:54 PDT on Sunday. I wasn’t going to go out looking for the barely one-day old Moon tonight, because I ***NEVER*** see the crescent Moon before at least a day and a half to two days after New.

Surprise! At 20:47 tonight, less than 25 hours after New Moon, there it was, a fingernail of light, just barely above the horizon and the neighbor’s roof.

I don’t know that I’ve ever gone back inside, grabbed the camera and tripod, and got back outside and ready to shoot so fast.

Of course, Venus and Jupiter are still up there, separating now that they’re past last week’s conjunction, as Jupiter dives toward it’s passage behind the Sun. (If Jupiter ever goes between us and the Sun, we’re in deep shit.)

And if you click on this picture and blow it up nice and big on your screen and look just a bit above the peak of the roof and just a smidgen to the right, about halfway between Jupiter and the Moon, there’s Mercury.

Three planets, the Moon, and a great sunset! What more could you ask for?

Go look tomorrow night just after sunset – the Moon will be a little more illuminated and up there about halfway between Mercury and Jupiter. IT SHOULD LOOK SPECTACULAR!!!

This is as close as Jupiter and Venus will get (from our viewpoint) for this year’s conjunction. Not quite as spectacular as it was a few years ago (there are pictures in the archives here) but better than it will be for several more years.

Jupiter and Venus in the upper left (Venus is the brighter one to the upper right of Jupiter), Mercury just above that lone tree near the bottom, just to the right of center.

From here they start to separate in our field of view. Jupiter is headed toward a passage behind the Sun from our point of view, off to the morning dawn in July, and gone from the evening sunset by the end of June. Venus will hang around for weeks. Mercury will get a little higher, then follow Jupiter toward the dawn. And in about 8-10 days, the crescent Moon will be up here in the mix.

It was overcast for much of the day, and at 18:00 I peeked and figured we might see Venus and Jupiter as blobs through medium-thin layers of clouds. Maybe.

At 20:45 I went out and was delighted to see color below, a spectacular pair of planets above!

As stated previously, Jupiter on the left, Venus on the right. They’ll be moving around a tiny bit from night to night, and after tomorrow they’ll be pulling apart (from our viewpoint), but they’ll both be visible after sunset for most of June.

Wow, that was pretty!

Tomorrow night is the closest approach for Jupiter and Venus for this conjunction – the next one this close won’t be for years.

If your sunset sky is clear, go take a look tomorrow. It’s all a naked eye event, no optical or photographic equipment needed. (You might want to bring a comfy lawn chair and a beverage. Your call!)