                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

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

                                 2022 June 2

                         Lunar Occultation of Venus
                  Image Credit & Copyright: Quentin Gineys

   Explanation: On May 27 Venus rose as the morning star, near the waning
   crescent Moon in a predawn sky already full of planets. It was close on
   the sky to the Moon's crescent and a conjunction of the second an third
   brightest celestial beacons were enjoyed by skygazers around the world.
   But seen from locations along a track through southeast Asia and the
   Indian Ocean the Moon actually passed in front of Venus in a lunar
   occultation. In this animated gif the 75 percent illuminated disk of
   Venus approaches and just begins to disappear behind the sunlit
   southwestern lunar limb. The telescopic frames used to construct it
   were captured from Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean around 4:50am
   local time, with the Moon and Venus very close to the eastern horizon.
   At the time Venus was over 180 million kilometers from Reunion Island,
   compared to a lunar distance of a mere 400 thousand kilometers or so.
   About 50 minutes later Venus emerged from behind the Moon.

                     Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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