When Venus is bright and far from the Sun, it is not that difficult to see in broad daylight if you know where to look. On this very clear afternoon in Connecticut, I could see Venus quite easily, about 11 degrees to the lower right of the crescent Moon. Capturing an image of it proved to be harder than seeing it visually, but after a few tries I obtained this image. The tree branch in the lower right corner points to Venus.

Encouraged by this success, I tried for Jupiter, which was about 5 degrees to the left of the Moon. I could not see it with the naked eye, but it was plainly visible as a small disk in 10x50 binoculars. The lower image shows the Moon at the extreme right and Jupiter at the extreme left, both about the same distance from the edges of the field of view.

Image details: 

Venus and Moon: A 1/1250-second exposure at ISO 100, taken with a Canon 400D camera at a focal length of 94 mm.

Jupiter and Moon: A 1/400-second exposure at ISO 100, taken with a Canon 400D camera at a focal length of 161 mm.

February 26, 2012