If you were driving home from work or putting the wheelie bins out during the early evening you may have noticed an amazing sight, an alignment of celestial beauty in the west. A crescent Moon flanked by Venus to the north, Spica in Virgo to the left and Jupiter much lower in the west.

The image at right was captured with a simple camcorder using the optical zoom only.

If you've taken a great picture of this event then we'd love to hear from you and check out your results.

As the Moon moved ever so slowly eastward, Venus appeared to close in on the lunar limb but from Sydney at least, it did not pass behind the Moon in an event known as an occultation.

What made observing this event so spectacular is when the Moon presents such thin crescent phase we can actually see its night side known as 'ashen light' which is in fact, light reflected from Earth's clouds, land formations and oceans shining back on to the lunar surface. What makes the view above somewhat bizarre for some beginners perhaps, is that we're looking at the planet Venus (in inner world orbiting the Sun) and giant Jupiter (an outer planet) - Earth is in between these two worlds. Spica is a blue-white star some 280 light years distant!

This image was taken with a Canon digital camera attached to a AC295 Ultra Deluxe afocal camera mount piggybacked to a EQ5 motor driven equatorial mount. For more information give us a call or contact us via our feedback form.

At Right: Spica is seen at lower left while much brighter Venus is just above the Earth-lit night side of the Moon.

Images taken from:

Latitude -33.7667
Longitude 151.2667

Credit - Steve Massey

From the team at myAstroShop.com.au