Posted on 01/01/2014 1:40:20 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Explanation: That's not the young crescent Moon poised above the western horizon at sunset. Instead it's Venus in a crescent phase, captured with a long telephoto lens from Quebec City, Canada, planet Earth on a chilly December 30th evening. The very bright celestial beacon is droping lower into the evening twilight every day. But it also grows larger in apparent size and becomes a steadily thinner crescent in binocular views as it heads toward an inferior conjunction, positioned between the Earth and the Sun on January 11. The next few evenings will see a young crescent Moon join the crescent Venus in the western twilight, though. Historically, the first observations of the phases of Venus were made by Galileo with his telescope in 1610, evidence consistent with the Copernican model of the Solar System, but not the Ptolemaic system.
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[Credit & Copyright: Jay Ouellet]
Happy New Year, Sunken Civ! ;-)
Happy New Year, SC.
Thanks for the years pictures.
Nice. New moon tonite!
Correct about Galileo, but to clarify: both the Ptolemaic and Copernican models were consistent with Venus appearing as a cresent, but Galileo also observed Venus in its gibbous phase, when it was on the far side of the sun. By the Ptolemaic theory that should never have been possible.
sidebar:
Scholars study handwritten notes - probably by Copernicus
30.12.2013
Source: Fotolia
http://www.naukawpolsce.pap.pl/en/news/news,398590,scholars-study-handwritten-notes-—probably-by-copernicus.html
I read a paper some years ago by Owen Gingerich who had examined copies of Copernicus’ book and found notes in them written by the readers—part of a study of how widely Copernicus had been read in the decades after his book was published. Interesting stuff, at least in Gingerich’s hands.
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