Today is Whit Sunday, or Pentecost, the 7th Sunday after Easter. More about this in our web page about the holidays whose dates depend on the March equinox and the phases of the Moon.
Here is the scene this evening over the western horizon, long enough after sunset for the sky to be dark, but with Venus still in view.
See the end note about enlarging illustrations. An arrow through a moving body shows its movement (against the starry background) from 2 days earlier to 2 days later. Venus is exaggerated 150 times in size, to show its crescent shape. The Moon is exaggerated 4 times in size.
Venus is hurrying to overtake distant Jupiter, and the conjunction of these two brightest planets will come on June 3.
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This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.
ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor.
One way: right-click, and choose ”View image” or ”Open image in new tab”, then enlarge. Or choose ”Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
Sometimes I make improvements or corrections to a post after publishing it. If you click on the title, rather than on ‘Read more’, I think you are sure to see the latest version. Or, if you click ‘Refresh’ or press function key 5, you’ll see the version change to the latest.
Your illustrations are ever A+++