Occultation of Venus

Today I had a chance to do some daylight astronomy. Venus was scheduled to be occulted by the Moon at 17:01 local time (15:01) UTC. I started observing some two hours before. The proximity of the Moon to Venus was a good opportunity to observe the planet in daylight. The planet was easily visible to the naked eye as a small bright point to the South East of the 12% crescent Moon. The position was very high in the sky, at 17:00 it was at an altitude of almost 70.5 deg.

Slowly the Moon moved Eastwards, ever closer to the planet. Exactly on time, as I observed through binoculars out of my office window, Venus suddenly grew fainter and disappeared. By the time it was to reappear at 18:01, I was home and quickly set up the telescope to better observe and photograph the event. The planet reappeared in the area of the crater Humboldt. I was surprised to see how much brighter the planet is compared to the Moon's surface. The sight of the 44% planet next to the much larger 12% moon was spectacular.

One of the photos I took just after the reappearance is shown above. A larger version can be seen here .