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Waning crescent Venus

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January 9, 2014

View larger. | Venus waning in the evening sky from Jan. 2, 2014 to Jan. 8, 2014. Photo by Shahrin Ahmad. Thank you, Shahrin!

Shahrin Ahmad captured this series of images of a waning crescent Venus from January 2, 2014 through last night (January 8). He wrote on EarthSky’s Facebook page:

Here is a compilation of 3 different dates, starting from 2nd Jan (left) when Venus is at 3.2% illumination, and ending on 8th Jan (right) at 0,7% illumination.

Very interesting to see how fast it changes in just within 5 days!

View larger. | Shahrin Ahmad captured this photo of Venus on January 9, 2014. Here is it only two days away from inferior conjunction on January 11, when Venus will pass 5 degrees N. of the sun as seen in Earth's sky. Afterwards, Venus will return to the eastern sky before dawn. Thank you, Shahrin. — View larger. | Shahrin Ahmad captured this photo of Venus on January 9, 2014. Here is it only two days away from inferior conjunction on January 11, when Venus will pass 5 degrees N. of the sun as seen in Earth’s sky. Afterwards, Venus will return to the eastern sky before dawn.

Shahrin Ahmad captured the photo above today (January 9, 2014). He was trying to capture what astronomers called the horns of Venus. That is, at inferior conjunction, the horns of Venus’s fading crescent can join tip-to-tip to form a complete circle – the result of sunlight trickling through the upper layers of Venus’s cloud cover. He wrote:

Today, 9 Jan 2014 at 0215UTC, with Venus shining at only 0.5% illumination, I wanted to see if there is any traces of the horn-shape crescent. I pushed the processing as much as possible, brightening the dark areas, without getting any artificial artifact.

The initial results seems to show that the crescent shape does extended well beyond 180 degrees around the limb.

The inverted image also shows the same.

It would be interesting to see if tomorrow will yield clearer results.

Very interesting indeed, Shahrin Ahmad. Thank you for posting!

Why are we seeing Venus wane in phase now? Recall that Venus orbits the sun one step inward from Earth. It is about to pass between us and the sun (actually, 5 degrees N. of the sun as seen on the dome of Earth’s sky) on January 11, 2014. The daylight hemisphere of Venus is facing almost entirely away from us now. As we gaze toward this planet, we are mainly seeing its night sky.

EarthSky guide to the visible planets

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January 9, 2014

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Deborah Byrd

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About the Author:

Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Prior to that, she had worked for the University of Texas McDonald Observatory since 1976, and created and produced their Star Date radio series. Today, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this website. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. In 2020, she won the Education Prize from the American Astronomical Society, the largest organization of professional astronomers in North America. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. "Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers," she says.