April 22, 2009: Venus occultation

Steve Gottlieb

Hope some of you caught Venus' disappearing and reappearing act with the moon this morning. I missed first contact just after 5:00 AM as my view to the east is partially compromised by the Berkeley Hills and the Venus/Moon pair was just too low (3 degrees). But there was no problem catching Venus popping out from behind the moon about 6:05.

The spectacle was mesmerizing in my 8" dob at just 42x with the tip of one horn instantly appearing and then the large, thin crescent of Venus slowly emerging from the dark limb of the moon over the next minute. Although the two crescents were roughly similar in shape (8% waning crescent with Venus closer to 16% illuminated) the size ratio is about 40:1. Still it was easy to resolve Venus' crescent in my 10x30 IS binoculars once it cleared the moon.

Steve