Explanation:
Venus rose in a glowing dawn
sky on November 5th, just before the Sun.
For early morning risers, its brilliant
crescent phase
was best appreciated with binoculars or a small telescope.
On that day the crescent Venus also appeared in close conjunction with
another lovely crescent that hugs the
eastern horizon in planet Earth's morning skies, the waning
crescent Moon.
The celestial photo-op is captured here from two locations.
Left,
separated by less than a degree, the two crescents hover above
a sea of clouds.
The picture was recorded from an Alpine mountain pass not far
from Turin, Italy.
On the right
is a sharp telephoto view taken before an earlier sunrise,
farther east in the Alborz Mountains
of Iran.
In steady skies the slender Moon is still sliding toward Venus,
the bright planet's
compact
crescent just clearing the mountainous horizon.
For now, the crescent phase of Venus remains easy to enjoy
with binoculars in November's dawn skies.
The first observations of the phases of Venus, made by
Galileo with his telescope
in 1610, agreed with the predictions of the heliocentric
Copernican model of the Solar System.
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