APOD: Mercury Meets Crescent Venus (2020 May 29)

[APOD Robot]

Mercury Meets Crescent Venus

Explanation: That's not a bright star and crescent Moon caught between branches of a eucalyptus tree. It's Venus in a crescent phase and Mercury. Near the western horizon after sunset, the two inner planets closely shared this telescopic field of view on May 22, seen from a balcony in Civitavecchia, Italy. Venus, the very bright celestial beacon, is wandering lower into the evening twilight. It grows larger in apparent size and shows a thinner crescent as it heads toward its inferior conjunction, positioned between Earth and Sun on June 3. Mercury, in a fuller phase, is climbing in the western sky though, reaching its maximum angular distance from the Sun on June 4 Still, this remarkably close pairing with brilliant Venus made Mercury, usually lost in bright twilight skies, easier to spot from planet Earth.

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[Ann]

Wow, the crescent of Venus! How often have we seen that in a widefield APOD?

And then Mercury is higher in the sky than Venus. That's funny and, I think, unusual too.

Great photo!

Ann

[orin stepanek]

Kudos to Marco Meniero! Beautiful Photo!

[gwrede]

This is Venus in the picture. What explains the peculiar form?

[Chris Peterson]

This is Venus in the picture. What explains the peculiar form?

It is overexposed and is therefore bloating (due to diffraction and scatter in the optics) towards a big blob.

[Tszabeau]

Does anyone know what the object, visible in the full sized view, at approx. 5:00 of Mercury is?

[johnnydeep]

Does anyone know what the object, visible in the full sized view, at approx. 5:00 of Mercury is?

I'm not finding what you are referring to. All I see is haze and trees all around both Mercury and Venus. How close to Mercury is it?

[Ann]

This is Venus in the picture. What explains the peculiar form?

---

I'm sure you're not asking about the phases of Venus, but in any case, I thought we might take a look at what the phases of Venus look like.

Ann

[Chris Peterson]

This is Venus in the picture. What explains the peculiar form?

---

I'm sure you're not asking about the phases of Venus, but in any case, I thought we might take a look at what the pahses of Venus look like. 8-)

Ann

Yes... but they never look quite like that!

[Tszabeau]

Does anyone know what the object, visible in the full sized view, at approx. 5:00 of Mercury is?

I'm not finding what you are referring to. All I see is haze and trees all around both Mercury and Venus. How close to Mercury is it?

It’s about an inch below and to the right of Mercury as it first becomes visible when I zoom in on the hi-res view. It would be approx. 75” from Mercury in the low-res view, if it were visible at that resolution.

[johnnydeep]

Does anyone know what the object, visible in the full sized view, at approx. 5:00 of Mercury is?

I'm not finding what you are referring to. All I see is haze and trees all around both Mercury and Venus. How close to Mercury is it?

It’s about an inch below and to the right of Mercury as it first becomes visible when I zoom in on the hi-res view. It would be approx. 75” from Mercury in the low-res view, if it were visible at that resolution.

If you mean this white pixel that's slightly bigger than all the other whitish noise, I suspect it's just more noise:

[Joe Stieber]

I just noticed that today's (29-May-2020) APOD photographer, Marco Meniero, is also today's EPOD photographer!

https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2020/05/twil ... mical.html

[Chris Peterson]

I'm not finding what you are referring to. All I see is haze and trees all around both Mercury and Venus. How close to Mercury is it?

It’s about an inch below and to the right of Mercury as it first becomes visible when I zoom in on the hi-res view. It would be approx. 75” from Mercury in the low-res view, if it were visible at that resolution.

If you mean this white pixel that's slightly bigger than all the other whitish noise, I suspect it's just more noise.

I think you're probably correct, given that when the image was made there were several brighter stars around Mercury than the one that was near the location of this spot... and they aren't showing up.

[neufer]

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This is Venus in the picture. What explains the peculiar form?

It is overexposed and is therefore bloating (due to diffraction and scatter in the optics) towards a big blob.

bloating towards a big blob

---

[gwrede]

This is Venus in the picture. What explains the peculiar form?

---

I'm sure you're not asking about the phases of Venus, but in any case, I thought we might take a look at what the phases of Venus look like.

Ann

Precisely, Ann. None of the phases look like my enlargement!

What it looks like is more like if Venus were eclipsed by a smaller body, which obviously can't be the case. Another poster seems to believe this is due to over-exposure, but that is too far off, both because of the form and because of the sharp contours.

All I am left with, is that this is a photoshop "enhancement", perhaps by somebody who didn't guess somebody would take a careful loook. -- Maybe he could see it with his bare eyes but it didn't come out in the picture, so he drew it.

I'd be very pleased to find out this was not the case, because such "doctoring" is not in the spirit of APOD standards and professionalism.

[Chris Peterson]

This is Venus in the picture. What explains the peculiar form?

---

I'm sure you're not asking about the phases of Venus, but in any case, I thought we might take a look at what the phases of Venus look like. 8-)

Ann

Precisely, Ann. None of the phases look like my enlargement!

What it looks like is more like if Venus were eclipsed by a smaller body, which obviously can't be the case. Another poster seems to believe this is due to over-exposure, but that is too far off, both because of the form and because of the sharp contours.

All I am left with, is that this is a photoshop "enhancement", perhaps by somebody who didn't guess somebody would take a careful loook. -- Maybe he could see it with his bare eyes but it didn't come out in the picture, so he drew it.

I'd be very pleased to find out this was not the case, because such "doctoring" is not in the spirit of APOD standards and professionalism.

This is exactly what an overexposed, bloated Venus looks like. I've gotten similar images many times while adjusting the exposure.