Moon and Venus, May 2007

Observing Venus in the daytime. One of my oldest interests is astronomy. I was sufficiently fascinated by it as a tiny kid to ask for a telescope for Christmas. My mom made a deal with me. She said I could get a small telescope that year, and if I really used it perhaps the next year the big one in the catalog might appear. The first one I got was a small and black and focused by sliding the tube that holds the eyepiece in and out of the main tube. It was probably collapsed down to no more than a foot or so. Its tripod worked, but was quite small. I used to set it on top of walls and tables and other things to see anything up high. It soon became evident that I would like a bigger, "real" telescope, so I think the next Christmas I awoke to find a fine, "real" telecope beside the tree. It had a quite nice equitorial mount and a 60mm objective lense, with a selection of three eyepieces and even a sun filter. It was the best Montgomery Wards had to offer in those days. I could barely pick it up and carry it around the yard. It was considerably bigger than I was. The mount for the tube was just about the same height I was, which would have made me about a yard tall. I was soon dragging my mom and dad out to look at Jupiter and its moons and Saturn and it's rings. But of course you don't need a telescope to observe things. One thing I like to do is find Venus in the daytime. I probably have been doing this since before I got my first telescope, but the first distinct memory of this I have is one day when I was out at Ben Sharpsteen's lake with him and his granddaughter, sometime in the 1970s. I mentioned that Venus was particularly bright that week, and in fact it was visible in the daytime. Gale, the granddaughter, was quite amazed when I pointed it out to her and she saw it plainly, shining there in the daytime. I wonder if she remembers that. My mom got great pleasure out of seeing Venus in the daytime, too. She judged it to be yet another reason to recognize the greatness of God. I've wondered if my fairly lame old 2Mpixel Sony MVC-CD200 with its 3X optical zoom could discern Venus in the daytime. Now, after considerable finagling, I have photographic proof. Yesterday the moon passed right by Venus, so this was a good time to use the moon as a "pointer" to Venus. When I first looked for the planet this morning there were enough thin wispy clouds that I only could catch glimpses of the tiny pinpoint of light. But now Venus is near the zenith, and the clouds seem to have dissolved, so this is probably the best photo my camera is liable to get of Venus in the daytime. The incredibly dim little dot at the end of the arrow at the top of this photo is, indeed, Venus. The crescent moon is at the bottom of the picture. I've tried in vain to get this photo to show up bigger than this, but I can't seem to override the default settings in this blog. I hope you can see the dot that is Venus. If not, you'll just have to trust me. Now I can go on to other things, like trying to finish a painting, and getting ready for my first rehearsal with Larry Potts and his Rivertown Band.