{"id":1035,"date":"2011-12-26T10:31:41","date_gmt":"2011-12-26T17:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/?p=1035"},"modified":"2011-12-26T10:31:41","modified_gmt":"2011-12-26T17:31:41","slug":"look-west-just-before-sunset-1226-venus-the-crescent-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/?p=1035","title":{"rendered":"Look west just before sunset (12\/26): Venus &amp; the crescent moon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/science-news\/science-at-nasa\/2011\/23dec_nightafter\/\">The Night After Christmas Sky Show &#8211; NASA Science<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>On Dec. 26th<\/strong>, the night after Christmas, Venus and the slender crescent Moon will gather for a jaw-dropping conjunction in the western sky. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/media\/medialibrary\/2011\/12\/23\/thadvsoske_strip.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Night After Christmas (splash)\" src=\"http:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/media\/medialibrary\/2011\/12\/23\/thadvsoske_strip.jpg\/image_full\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A Venus-Moon conjunction photographed in Nov. 2011 by Thad V&#8217;Soske of Fruita, CO. The &quot;Night After Christmas&quot; conjunction will look about the same. Copyright: T. V&#8217;Soske\/Cosmotions.com <\/p>\n<p>The action begins shortly before sunset. Around 4:30 pm to 5:00 pm local time, just as the sky is assuming its evening hue, Venus will pop into view, glistening bright in the deepening twilight. No more than 6 degrees to the right lies the crescent Moon, exquisitely slender, grinning like the Cheshire cat with his head cocked at humorous attention. This is a wonderful time to look; there are very few sights in the heavens as splendid as Venus and the Moon gathered close and surrounded by twilight blue.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But don&#8217;t go inside yet<\/strong>, because the view is about to improve. As the sky fades to black, a ghostly image of the full Moon materializes within the horns of the lunar crescent. This is caused by Earthshine, a delicate veil of sunlight reflected from our own blue planet onto the dusty-dark lunar terrain. <font style=\"background-color: #ffc000\">Also known as &quot;the Da Vinci glow,&quot;<\/font> after Leonardo da Vinci who first understood it 500 years ago, Earthshine pushes the beauty of the conjunction over the top. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/science-news\/science-at-nasa\/2011\/23dec_nightafter\/\">The Night After Christmas Sky Show &#8211; NASA Science<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Night After Christmas Sky Show &#8211; NASA Science On Dec. 26th, the night after Christmas, Venus and the slender crescent Moon will gather for a jaw-dropping conjunction in the western sky. A Venus-Moon conjunction photographed in Nov. 2011 by Thad V&#8217;Soske of Fruita, CO. The &quot;Night After Christmas&quot; conjunction will look about the same. &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/?p=1035\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Look west just before sunset (12\/26): Venus &amp; the crescent moon<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}