Venus Just After Sunset

That’s a marvelous photo. Note the fact that Venus’ motion reverses (retrogresses) during the period of the exposures.

Best wishes,
Jerry

Very cool indeed! :thumbsup:

Yes, it must be Venus. The track plots like my ex trying to find a spot in a half-empty parking lot. :laughing:

djm

The truly cool thing, to me, is that you can see Venus’ orbit around the sun during the period of this photo.

Rather than seeing it as a series of dots on a plane, if you think of a more or less round, three dimensional orbit around the sun, a circle with its edge towards us, the leg of the orbit on the left where it retrogresses and goes the other way can be seen for what it really is, the planet is on the other side of the sun from where it is when it’s going the opposite direction.

If you look at the trace of Venus’ path with that in mind, you can see about three fourths of its orbit, the near part between us and the sun and the far part with the sun between us and Venus.

Best wishes,
Jerry