Slide.... Occulation of Venus by the Moon tomorrow June 17, 2026.
U.S. Viewing time at bottom link.
From Spaceweather.com 6/16/2026
For the first time in 11 years, the crescent Moon will pass in front of Venus in broad daylight over the USA. The bright planet will disappear behind the Moon's dark edge and reappear about an hour later.
Can you really see this during the day? You can! Scan the blue sky with binoculars until you find the Moon's pale crescent. Once located, you'll discover both the Moon and Venus are surprisingly easy to see with the naked eye. A smartphone camera zoomed and pointed in the right direction will have no trouble recording the scene.
Warning: DO NOT point your optics at the sun. Standing in the shadows is a good way to avoid this blinding mistake.
https://spaceweather.com/images2026/15jun26/timetable_big.jpg
Thanks, Pete! Rain all day here tomorrow. :(
Why do I feel like the kid on Venus where it rains ALL THE TIME and they only get to see the Sun ONCE a year...and the mean kids lock her in the closet so she misses it!
Ray Bradbury. ‘The Illustrated Man.’ (Short stories. A CLASSIC!)
Well, we were out camping (and nearly getting blown, as in wind-blown, into the next state), and I completely missed this one. (It was cloudy most of the day anyway.)
Occulations are “cool”, tho’. Thanks for posting!
Other than that windy(!) day I mentioned, most of our camping trip went fairly well. Except... we’d gone to a “SRA” (State Recreation Area) in IL, said SRA being only ~22 minutes away from a lake in which the IDNR stocks “saugeye”. I really wanted to take a crack at Saugeye, esp. as they are supposed to be as good as walleye as table fare. The lake is a nice and quite clean “city lake” (if 5000 inhabitants can be called a “city”). It has well maintained fishing piers and, essential for my wife, even tho’ clouds came and went, some shade trees here and there, near the water.
And... The saugeye were a bust. But, fishing for Saugeye, I did catch just about as “handsome” a 7 lb. channel catfish as you’d ever hope to see. (I say “handsome” even tho’ it was a female. Wifey said it looked like a shark. In a way... yes, quite so.) “Was” because now Ms. Catfish is cleaned and on ice in the fridge, for frying tomorrow. I can live with it. :-)
Wifey got some great sunset photos — if she’ll send me a few, I’ll try to post one.