Moon near Venus, and deep-sky wonders!

Event Date: January 10th

Time: 6:45 AM

Brief

  As we look southeast this morning, bright Venus rises a little over an hour before the Sun, as seen from most latitudes in the world.  Joining it, is a very old, waning crescent Moon.  If skies are clear, can you see both?  Looking carefully at the Moon, this is also a good chance to see the Earthshine on it.  Although this usually works better when it is higher above the horizon and out of atmospheric pollution, the Moon is only 2% illuminated and therefore, enough light is being reflected off of Earth to come back to the Moon's shadowed portion*, for us to see.

   Looking below, I will show a zoom-out of the two, followed by a zoom-in.  Although the software cannot adjust Earthshine accordingly, it still shows the the lit portion can be light enough to even see the largest of Maria (seas).

* hence the term, as we have Moonshine on our planet during full and gibbous Moons

click on images to enlarge: courtesy of Starry Night Pro Plus, version 6.4.3, by Simulation Curriculum Corp.

Detailed

Venus and the Moon as shown above, are a little over 3º separated.  Also, near Venus, while or when dark enough, we see two deep-sky features.  I have briefly mentioned these so far in a past entry, and will go into more detail tomorrow.  For now, look to see how little of the Moon we see lit up.  The entire dark portion of the disc is outlined circumference-wise.  If looking through a powerful enough camera, binoculars, or of course a telescope, you may see something similar to what I captured in this photo: I took this last month when the Moon was a little bigger in phase.  Take a look, and see with the cropped, 4--times [optical] zoom how much Earthshine you can see.  

©David Likuski: taken with a Canon Powershot® A570, 7.1 megapixel; before Sunrise Dec. 11th, 2012

   With your monitor turned on brightly, do you also notice--besides the Earthshine--the larger maria (seas)?  They are darker, and possibly visible if you put the photo in your library (which is fine with me!) and enlarge it.  Try not to enlarge too much though, as it may become "grainy", and harder to see the contrast of dark areas.   

Finally, I will mention that the Moon reaches waning crescent phase about once a month, yet much more impressive when pairing with one or more planets.