Venus?

[evacguy]

Don't laugh, but I'm pretty sure this is Venus. I shot this on the 11 March at about 19:00. It just appeared as a bright star about 8 degrees above the horizon to the naked eye. When I zoomed in I was surprised to find that the star was a crescent. This would make sense as Venus was at it's greatest eastern elongation on 10 Jan 2025 and will be at its inferior conjunction on March 23 2025. What do you think?

Heavily cropped

• ILCE-7M4
• FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II
• 200.0 mm
• ƒ/2.8
• 1/125 sec
• ISO 100

Lightly cropped

• ILCE-7M4
• FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II
• 200.0 mm
• ƒ/2.8
• 1/125 sec
• ISO 100

 

[Alan Clark]

Yes, it is Venus. Becoming a very thin crescent but harder to see over the next few days.

 

[evacguy]

Don't laugh, but I'm pretty sure this is Venus. I shot this on the 11 March at about 19:00. It just appeared as a bright star about 8 degrees above the horizon to the naked eye. When I zoomed in I was surprised to find that the star was a crescent. This would make sense as Venus was at it's greatest eastern elongation on 10 Jan 2025 and will be at its inferior conjunction on March 23 2025. What do you think?

Heavily cropped
View attachment 72369

Lightly cropped
View attachment 72368

The image was taken hand held but braced against a wall. Would have been better if I had used a tripod. Nevertheless, it is still clearly a crescent shape. I understand, it you have really good eyes, the crescent shape is vissible to the naked eye - alas, those days are long gone for me!

 

[Richard A]

I understand, it you have really good eyes, the crescent shape is vissible to the naked eye - alas, those days are long gone for me!

Yes, Venus is the third brightest object in the sky. It is possible to see it in the daytime but because it is quite small compared to the sun and the moon it is quite hard to find. I took a photo of Venus transiting the sun years ago with one of my Pentax DSLR’s. I think I posted it on here at some stage.

 

[evacguy]

Yes, Venus is the third brightest object in the sky. It is possible to see it in the daytime but because it is quite small compared to the sun and the moon it is quite hard to find. I took a photo of Venus transiting the sun years ago with one of my Pentax DSLR’s. I think I posted it on here at some stage.

Richard, do you have a link to the photograph, I’d like to see that.

 

[Richard A]

Venus-Transitting-The-Sun-2012.jpg

• Richard A
• Mar 17, 2024

It's not the greatest photo ever but it's a bit of history I guess. Having said that, with all the modern software now, I might have another go at processing this.

It is interesting to me because one of the major aims of Captain James Cook's first voyage, from 1768 - 1771 (where he discovered and circumnavigated New Zealand and discovered the east coast of Australia in 1770) was to observe and record the transit of Venus across the Sun from the Pacific Ocean in 1769. The Royal Society was hoping that if they could observe this from various positions, they could calculate the Earth's distance from the Sun.