Saturday, August 19, 2017

Night Sky Photography -- 08-19-2017 -- The Waning Crescent Moon & Venus

This morning I woke up early enough to catch this outstanding pair of shots of the waning crescent moon (Luna) and the bright planet Venus in the east. Both Venus and Luna are the second-brightest and third-brightest heavenly bodies to light up the sky, after the sun, so they are pretty hard to miss. 


 
The lit portion of a waning crescent moon always points toward the sun. The lit side of a waning moon also points in the moon’s direction of travel: eastward, in orbit around Earth. At each new moon, the moon passes between the Earth and sun to some extent, to leave the morning sky and enter the evening sky. More often than not, however, the new moon sweeps to the north or south of the sun, so there is usually no solar eclipse at new moon.

I hope y'all enjoyed my night sky and planetary photography. Clear skies willing, my next set of photographs will show the much anticipated Solar Eclipse on Monday, August 21st. 

Until then keep looking to the skies.

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