We had this beautiful view in the western sky last night.
The brilliant (magnitude -4) planet Venus was approximately 1 degree from the 3.5 day old crescent Moon. The photo doesn’t do justice to the entire view with the Moon in the constellation of Gemini, crowned by the two bright stars, Castor and Pollux.
The image above is a cropped portion of a picture taken with a Nikon D80 using a 70-300 zoom lens at 300mm focal length. Exposure was 1/125 second at f/5.6 and ISO 1600.
Next month, on June 18, there will be a similar configuration with the added feature of the planet Saturn also being near the moon. If you have a good place to observe the western sky and your weather cooperates, this should be a spectacular sight. Mark your calender and look shortly after sunset.
What a great picture! Certainly much better than the ones I took with my little Canon S400. But not as great as actual reality; what a beautiful sight the sky was last night.
Thank you for that Beautiful Photo Tom! After reading some of your links, I find that my memory doesn’t last until sunset to identify those incredible configurations. We have an awesome view of the Western Sky from here too!