Did anyone catch Venus and the Moon together last night? Mrs. BA and I were out walking Canis Major and Minor right at sunset, and the two nearest celestial objects were also apparently next to each other in the sky. It was lovely! I would have taken some pictures, but things are getting packed up…
Never fear, though. Dave P. caught the pairing. Though I have to gloat a little: Venus and the Moon were closer together when I saw them, with Venus maybe a half degree below the lower horn of the Moon’s crescent. I caught Mrs. BA gawking at the scene too. 
May 20th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
It was such a beautiful sight. I was walking to my car and glanced up to see it, and just stood there for a couple of minutes gazing in astonishment. What an amazing surprise.
May 20th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
I had heard about it, but forgotten. I was leaving a friend’s graduation party, looked up, and saw a lovely crescent moon and Venus. I couldn’t get them both to fit in the field-of-view of my telescope, but I got pictures of them both, so I can make a composite image. It’s my first try with composite astrophotography, wish me luck! Oh wait, I don’t believe in luck. Darn.
May 20th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
My 10 year old son had his first look at the moon through a telescope last night.
The moon and Venus were spectacular together.
Rarely can you ever get a planet and the moon together in the same telescope view.
May 20th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
I was on a rafting trip and sitting at a beautiful river side with a camp fire going under the trees! My binoculars gave us an excellent view.
May 20th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Yes, I saw it. Magnificent!
May 20th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
I saw them too! I took some pictures, but they sucked.
May 20th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
I got some photos through the Saharan dust from Puerto Rico. Venus was still above the moon here.
May 20th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Much as I appreciate your telling me about the things I should have seen last night….
Actually it was cloudy here anyway, but if there’s a comet coming, please let us know before it disappears?
May 20th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Saw it last night. Was so wrapped up with some artwork I’m doing indoors that I didn’t think about it until stepping out after sunset for a breather. It was beautiful.
May 20th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Hi BA,
Long-time reader, first-time poster. So here’s how BA’d I am: I was walking Canis Solo last night and saw the moon and Venus, and my first thought was:
“I bet Phil will have pictures of that up on his site tomorrow.”
May 20th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
“So here’s how BA’d I am: ”
Mine was “Hmm. Why didn’t I hear about this from BA before? Maybe it’s not all that rare…”
but anyway, it turns out ONE of the pictures I took wasn’t all that bad. I tried to take some with binoculars, but taking good pictures through binoculars is nearly impossible, especially at night.
Here’s the picture: http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/TheAlphaWolf/?action=view¤t=DSCN4763copy.jpg
May 20th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
I sat in my back yard just looking at this big giant question mark in the sky last night. Spectacular. And the evening before, I saw Mercury for the first time in years, too! Normally I can get halfway decent pictures just by holding my camera up to my binocular eyepiece, but they didn’t co-operate last night.
May 20th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
I saw it too, spectacular!
Had some nice side effects, when I pointed it out to Mrs. Sarge, and reminded her that Venus is named for the Goddess of love, and made up some stuff about how the crescent moon is a harbinger of romance….
May 20th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
It looked really nice right around dusk when you could still see the entire surface of the moon, but it looked even nicer a few weeks ago when it seemed like Venus was falling into the waiting arms of the crescent moon. I tried to get a picture then, but my camera, unfortunately, sucks. A couple of hours later, and a bit to the south, I was able to see another planet which I assumed was Mars, due to its reddish tint. A little research tells me it was probably Jupiter though.
May 20th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
The pairing brought to mind the symbol of Islam. I wonder if this astronomical event is frequently used as a sign from God to goad the fervant into acts of piety?
May 20th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
It was spectacular. I was camping up in the mountains and told my 3 year old daughter to look up to take a look at it. She exclaimed, “the moon, and a star next to the moon”. I explained that the star was really the planet Venus. Then she runs to her mom points and says, “the moon and the star is Venus, but it isn’t a star it is a planet”.
May 20th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Yeah, i read it in space.com a few days ago, but i forgot until yesterday when i saw it, the view was astonishingly beautiful, the silvery moon and its bright companion, i was driving back home when i saw it, when i stopped at a red light i kept staring at it and didn’t realized it had changed to green… but fortunately the kind driver at the car behind me reminded me of it… and something about my mother too… well… beatiful sight anyway
May 20th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
We were rained out here in Northeastern PA. I have been talking about it on my site for a week, and I was gratified by the number of search engine hits I got from people who apparently saw this without knowing about it ahead of time and decided to look it up.
A friend posted a link to someone else’s blog who has a pretty good picture:
http://lifesinwestcliffe.blogspot.com/2007/05/did-you-see-it.html
Mark June 18th on your calendars: the Moon OCCULTS Venus on that day! This will be a daylight event for those of us in the U.S. who will get to see it, but will be visible in the nighttime for Europe and the Middle East. Sky & Telescope recommends this site for more information:
http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota/planets/0618venus.htm
May 20th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Ah yup, I seen it last night. It was pretty glorious. They were so close, you couldn’t help but notice it. I couldn’t help but feel that my brain was far far away whenever I was looking up at it.
May 20th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
It’s raining in Brisbane today, but I saw this last night just before six PM as I was driving from my home at Wavell Heights to pick up a pizza from (well-known pizza company) at Kedron. My first thoughts were, “How Islamic”, and “I wonder if I can use the moon to help me spot Venus during daylight?”
May 20th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
I saw the two of them last night outside the grocery store where there is a nice wide open view. I didn’t see anyone else looking up. Then I was stuck in a bottleneck to get inside my apartment complex, so I was able to linger and let my thoughts wander, as they often do looking at the sky. Their position was like this photo from Shreveport, Louisiana except there were no clouds and the sky was a deep, dark blue in Houston. Venus was glowing. (JB of Brisbane, I thought of the Islamic crescent and star at first, too.)
It made me think how infrequently I hear people comment about such things as part of daily conversation. There’s so much loveliness in the sky! Anyway, tonight I was outside and Venus has run away from the Moon, but I could catch them both in the same camera frame. Took some pictures of a big angel…er, moth, too. It hasn’t moved for a couple of days now.
May 20th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
In Florida, because of the lingering smoke from massive brushfires, the crescent moon appeared a deep crimson. It was cool enough to stand there breathing wood smoke for a few minutes just gazing…
May 20th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
TAW, that’s a great shot!
I didn’t blog about this earlier because I didn’t know. It was pretty cool to look up and see it. And yes, Mercury is visible to well below Venus. Tonight they were lined up pretty well, defining the plane of the solar system for anyone who just had the urge to look up…
May 20th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
[...] bad astronomy in movies, TV shows, and news broadcasts. From time to time he’s also known to point out some current events in the sky) Toms Astronomy Blog or any of the other sites in my massive list of astronomy websites and blogs. [...]
May 21st, 2007 at 12:18 am
My 3 year old son loves to look at the Moon and stars through his ‘telescope’, a cardboard tube with a cellophane lens.
May 21st, 2007 at 1:05 am
Yup, I saw that too – looked out the window on spec and though “woo”.
A have a writeup and larger photos too.
May 21st, 2007 at 2:47 am
I saw this myself. Wonderful view!
I’m wondering if a similar view will occur with the moon and Jupiter. Will have to wait and see! And it’d be interesting to see how close Venus and the moon get next time during the waxing crescent.
May 21st, 2007 at 3:24 am
Thanks for the link BA. Glad you liked the image.
May 21st, 2007 at 4:01 am
First attempt to post didn’t seem to work. Trying again
Spaceweather.com has a good collection:
http://spaceweather.com
After Monday, it should be in their archives:
http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=21&month=05&year=2007
Here’s my favorite so far:
http://spaceweather.com/swpod2007/21may07/Alain-Couture-moon-and-venus-at-dusk_1179716288.jpg
May 21st, 2007 at 4:04 am
These kind of things make me wish I had a focal reducer for my ’scope & webcam combo. I would have LOVED to get that shot, but my scope is too long to get them both in there afocally.
May 21st, 2007 at 4:15 am
Yes, I caugth it using my 150 mm refractor….beautifu sight to behold, just fantastic. Using a 30mm Two Inch just brought the two into a great focus. I should of taken some pictures but I was in one of my lazy moods. Now I’m kicking myself for doing so.
May 21st, 2007 at 6:09 am
Aaaah, so it was Venus! Me and my wife were on our way home when we saw it and concluded it was the space station. This triggered a half-hour talk about science and space exploration… We could see that bright ’star’ even through the unending row of lights of a busy highway. I was pretty amazed at that.
May 21st, 2007 at 7:41 am
My wife and I saw it on Saturday night. I thought it was beautiful. I wanted to take a picture and email it to you, but I was out on the town. I did wonder if you would see it. Glad you did and blogged about it.
May 21st, 2007 at 10:07 am
I caught them in daylight (click for report in Swedish and crap drawing)! Now that was quite something. I had no idea you could see Venus with the naked eye during the day.
May 21st, 2007 at 10:19 am
the fiance and I were out two nights ago grabbing a bite and got to watch it in all it’s splendor.
May 21st, 2007 at 10:58 am
I did see that last night. Right about twilight, I looked up and saw the two right there. I wondered for a moment what Venus’ phase might be since I couldn’t really tell with my bare eyes. I knew they didn’t both have to be crescent.
May 21st, 2007 at 11:35 am
I saw them last, night, too, as I was walking the dog. It was a little hazy out, but still spectacular.
Nick
May 21st, 2007 at 11:49 am
I was at the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory open house on Saturday, and I saw the pairing. It was spectacular.
May 21st, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I was at a family gathering in Indiana…a cousin’s graduation party. I took her outside about 9:30 at night to show everyone. We also went out about an hour later to see the relative motion. The Moon clearly moved eastward relative to Venus in that time which really surprised everyone. People didn’t realize you could see the motion so easily over such a short period of time.
Rob
May 21st, 2007 at 12:44 pm
My 5 year old spotted them first, “Look daddy, there’s the moon and Venus.” (Still trying to figure out how he knew it was Venus.) So I went inside and got the binoculars for him and his little brother, they spent 20 minutes looking at the pair – when they weren’t distracted by the contrails of the passing airplanes…
May 21st, 2007 at 4:33 pm
This was pretty impressive on Saturday night as well, when I got a picture of it:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cbane/508581817/
May 21st, 2007 at 5:48 pm
My wife just bought me a Kodak Z612 digital camera with a 12X optical zoom. I took it outside Sunday night, set it to “Auto” and pointed at the beautiful pairing of Venus and the moon. I think this camera and I are beginning a wonderful relationship.
[image]http://homepage.mac.com/copelag/.Pictures/moon-venus.jpg[/image]
Here is a link to a high res version:
http://homepage.mac.com/copealg/.Pictures/moon-venus2.jpg
May 21st, 2007 at 5:50 pm
DRAT…totally screwed up previous post. Try, try again.
http://homepage.mac.com/copelag/.Pictures/moon-venus2.jpg
Sorry about wasting bytes….
May 21st, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Gee, I am not very good at this…
Addendum: picture I linked to above is 2832 X 2128. Scroll around to find the good stuff.
May 21st, 2007 at 10:58 pm
cope: Nice image! Now I know how much zoom you need. 4x certainly wasn’t cutting it.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:01 am
Nice shot, Cope.
May 22nd, 2007 at 5:56 am
I was at my cousin’s wedding. Folks were in and out of the reception hall all evening (there was an outdoor terrace), and it was a very common topic of conversation. My father apparently outted me as an astronomy hobbyist, and so I nearly always had several people to talk to, all asking me about Venus.
It’s nice when you can get so many people looking up.
Second most common question was “how often do they get that close together?” (”What planet is that?” was the first.)
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:34 am
Goddamn it! I knew this was happening, and I totally forgot to look!
It was cloudy. I’m sure it was cloudy. Musta been cloudy…
May 22nd, 2007 at 11:40 am
I did infact see it last night, but it was a little later and venus was probably 20 degrees to the right of the moon by the time I saw it. Still impressive, given that I’m in a very high light area.
November 10th, 2007 at 8:22 am
what did the moon look like last night?
November 11th, 2007 at 7:57 am
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March 30th, 2008 at 10:57 am
I saw the Moon last night and it was a breathtaking site. I thought the Moon looked odd, a little different. I saw it at 3:00 AM and I noticed the warm star to its left. Warm, meaning it is closer to us than a blue star, where that means it is colder and further away from us. I enjoyed it and noticed the odd shapes that appeared. I am glad I woke up and looked out the window to see a great site!
June 20th, 2008 at 12:36 am
I saw this from Taipei, Taiwan, where, because it’s in the southern hemisphere, the moon was almost full. Venus was the brightest I think I’ve ever seen it, and the moon was also unusually bright. I’ve never seen these two together, either.
I saw them first framed by two tall buildings, which I thought was cool. You can rarely see many stars in Taipei because of frequent cloud cover and lots of light pollution, and last night there were no stars, but Venus was clearly visible!
December 1st, 2008 at 6:06 pm
it’s my habit to look at the sky every night and i was amazed when i saw the moon together with the planet venus lastnight. their position looks likes the one of the “smileys” on my phone..
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:44 am
Yes i saw the moon last night,and it was awsome thing to see here from lake havasu city Az!I never seen jupiter so close to the moon!