Astrophoto: Crescent Venus in the Afternoon

By Nancy Atkinson - January 2, 2014 at 9:47 AM UTC | Observing
venus-afternoon.png

In December, we challenged our readers to

try and see Venus during the daytime

. Sharin Ahmad from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia started off the new year by nailing this awesome picture of a crescent Venus at just after noon local time today (January 2, 2014). "The usual cloudy Kuala Lumpur sky is teasing me again, giving me crystal blue sky today!" Shahrin said via email.

Based on SkySafari, Venus was about 3.2% illuminated, and about 15 degrees from Sun.

Equipment: Skywatcher 120ED (F=1800mm), and IMG132E video camera.

Here are other recent images of Venus submitted to our Flickr page by our readers:

[caption id="attachment_107677" align="aligncenter" width="580"]

Crescent Venus on Dec. 31, 2013, seen from Arizona. Credit and copyright: Robert Sparks. [/caption]

[caption id="attachment_107679" align="aligncenter" width="580"]

The color of Venus: Three images of Venus taken on January 1, 2014. Credit and copyright: Sergei Golyshev .[/caption]

Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you're giving us permission to post them). Please explain what's in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com