                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                                2018 October 5
                                      [2]
                  The Last Days of Venus as the Evening Star
             Image Credit & Copyright [3] : Radu-Mihai Anghel [4]

Explanation: That's not a young crescent Moon [5] poised above the hills along
the western horizon at sunset. It's Venus in a crescent phase [6] . About 54
million kilometers away and less than 20 percent illuminated, it was captured
by telescope and camera on September 30 near Bacau, Romania. The bright
celestial beacon is now languishing in the evening twilight, its days as the
Evening Star in 2018 coming to a close. But it also grows larger in apparent
size and becomes an ever thinner crescent in telescopic views [7] . Heading
toward an inferior conjunction [8]  (non-judgmental), the inner planet will be
positioned between Earth and Sun on October 26 and lost from view in the solar
glare. At month's end a crescent Venus will reappear in the east though,
rising just before the Sun as the brilliant Morning Star [9] .

                      Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend

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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1810/Venus_Radu-Mihai_MG_3429.jpg
  [3] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [4] mailto: aramida [at] gmail [dot] com
  [5] ap050513.html
  [6] ap170317.html
  [7] https://space.jpl.nasa.gov/
  [8] http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/I/Inferior+Conjunction
  [9] https://history.nasa.gov/SP-424/ch1.htm
  [10] ap181004.html
  [11] archivepix.html
  [12] lib/apsubmit2015.html
  [13] lib/aptree.html
  [14] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search
  [15] calendar/allyears.html
  [16] /apod.rss
  [17] lib/edlinks.html
  [18] lib/about_apod.html
  [19] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=181005
  [20] ap181006.html
  [21] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [22] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [23] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
  [24] http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  [25] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [26] https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html
  [27] https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  [28] https://www.nasa.gov/
  [29] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/
  [30] http://www.mtu.edu/
