From the archives: Moon and Venus conjunctions

According to me, one of the most beautiful sights in astronomy is to see the Moon together with one or more planets in the twilight sky. It gives a feeling of depth when these celestial bodies group together.

After browsing through my image files, I found two images that depict the Moon in conjunction with Venus. I've never published these pictures on my website, so now I share them with you in my blog. Please click on the images to view them at a higher resolution without JPEG artifacts.

The first picture was taken on April 16, 2010, 20h33 local time. The picture was taken with an Olympus E-500 with a 40-150 lens operating at 92 mm f/7.1. The exposure time was 0.5 seconds at ISO 400. (Thank you, Exif data!)

The second picture was taken on December 31, 2010, 7h31 local time. Same camera, same lens, but operating at 55 mm f/7.1. Exposed for 5 seconds at ISO 200.