Did You See Venus and the Moon Together?

On the Rebbe's Yartzheit, Monday night, there was a rare and beautiful astronomical phenomenon known as the 'moon's occultation of Venus'. I called Malkah out immediately to see it. I took a few shots and I found a few pics on the web as well...

As seen from Amman


As seen from Cairo


As seen from Bahrain


This is what the Gulf Daily News "the Voice of Bahrain" wrote:

This is the moment shortly after the planet Venus was obscured by the moon on Monday evening. Engineer and astronomer Premjith Narayanan took the photograph at around 8pm. "Astronomically speaking, this is called occultation," said the Alstom employee yesterday.

"The word occult means literally to hide. This is what occurs when the moon obscures a bright planet or a star for a brief period of time."

This is my long exposure, hand shaking shot


Here is the article from Sky and Telescope: "The Moon hides Venus" by Sean Walker

Monday mornings occultation of Venus behind the Moon was a beautiful sight for those lucky enough see the event.

Although residents from the Middle East to Europe had the best locations where the event took place high in the sky, North Americans living in the northeast were able to catch at least the reemergence of the the planet at roughly 9:45 EDT, give or take a few minutes depending on where you were.

Observing from the shores of Saint Froid Lake in northern Maine, Dave Dickinson was able to witness the entire event. He noted that Venus vanished over the span of 10 seconds shortly before 9:05 EDT. Although the Moon was about 6 degrees above the horizon at the time, it was invisible to the naked eye.

Conditions were less favorable in Massachussetts, as Joe Monju of Arlington, MA. describes: "Despite a cleansing rain storm on Sunday night June 17, 2007 the horizon was still too hazy to see any faint objects below 10 degrees. I finally found the Moon about 10 minutes before Venus reappeared, and watched the final stages at about 9:45 AM EDT through my 11x80 Swift binoculars".

A group of editors here headed across the street to the highest point in Danehy Park in Cambridge, MA, where we had no luck finding the Moon before first contact. About 5 minutes before Venus slipped out from behind the Moon, senior editor Dennis DiCicco managed to spot the Moon through the haze with 9x63 binoculars. I managed to find it also by standing over Dennis and copying him as he shouted "here it comes!", and we were able to observe the final moments of the event.

My visual impression was that of a glittering diamond emerging from the southern limb of the faint crescent Moon. Quite a site to behold! If you missed the event, have a look at our readers images here.