Appreciation of Nature

Venus appeals to us strongly in this season. It appeared along with the moon in the South. This was shot on 5:15 in the evening of Dec. 04, 1997, in Toyono-cho, Osaka, Japan. On your left the bigger white spot is the moon and the smaller one down under is Venus. Comparing with the moon, you can easily imagine how bright Venus is. I owe a lot to my digital camera, Olympus-C800L for this picture.

A sky watcher, Tutomu Hirano, who lives in Toyono-cho, gave us a chance to view Venus yesterday using his huge telescope. Guess what? What we caught was a crescent-shaped Venus in the telescope. Venus also has waxing and waning, he says. How interesting!

(This is an extra edition.)