Venus, at dusk

[silylene old]

Tonight and the next few nights Venus will be about as close as it ever gets to the Earth. It's apparent diameter is a huge 59" on Jan 1, or about 1/31 the apparent diameter of the moon. This is the largest Venus will appear for the next couple of decades.<br /><br />right now it's a very pretty sharp cresecent shape, visible right after sundown near the horizon. I just finished observing it with large binos. Looks a bit like a crescent moon on its side.<br /><br />it's easy to see in even cheap binoculars (I checked with my wife's pair). If you have <i>excellent</i> eyes and a steady atmosphere, you should see the crescent without assistance (I can't). It's a good test of visual acuity. See Sky & telescope, p 66 Dec 2005 issue. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><em><font color="#0000ff">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</font></em> </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><font color="#0000ff"><em>I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function.</em></font> </div> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>If you have excellent eyes and a steady atmosphere, you should see the crescent without assistance (I can't).<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Without assistance (i.e. my glasses), I can't see Venus, period. <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> I'm not even sure how thick the Moon has to be before I can reliably spot it with my unaided eyes. Crappy vision.<br /><br />However, apparently Chuck Yeager's one of those rare folks with such vision. During WWII, he became famous among his squadron for spotting German fighters <i>several minutes</i> before his colleagues could see them, and he reliably indicated the direction of Venus' cusps. Talk abut legendary eyesight! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>