As the brightest of planets reappears, my book about Venus the planet and Venus the goddess also rises into view.
First, here’s the scene tomorrow as Venus is welcomed onto the stage by the Moon.
See the end note about enlarging illustrations.
I’ll explain the picture in a moment. For details about the book, please see:
www.universalworkshop.com/venus/
You will notice that there is – dammit – a complication. You can get the book right now, by simply clicking the Amazon button. But I’m trying a new and better way, and it isn’t quite ready.
There is another company, Ingram, the respected book distributor, that offers print-on-demand, but more. It works with the bookshops, , instead of out-competes then. It makes it possible for bookshops and libraries around the world to find and stock the book, and for institutions to get discounts on multiple copies.
The book is ready in Ingram’s hands. But their wheels grind more slowly. It could take as many as a dozen working days from now for the book to be in everyone’s computer system.
It’s a dilemma I wish I didn’t have to give you. By all means get the book from Amazon now; or, try asking your bookshop for it. I’d be very glad to know the result. Perhaps we’ll learn that it takes three days to become available in the U.S., thirteen in the Philippines.
***
As for the sky scene of tomorrow’s dawn horizon:
The rising Moon is serving to draw attention to newly appearing Venus, because it passes less than a degree north of the planet.
In fact the Moon occults (that is, hides) Venus. Not an entirely polite way of welcoming the lady! This happens around 9 Universal Time, which is five or more hours earlier by American clocks; therefore shortly before the time of our sky scene, with Moon and Venus below the horizon.
The occultation could be seen at dawn in eastern Canada and by daylight in Europe and northern Asia. The “shadow” of the Moon in Venus-light – that is, the area on the Earth where the Moon blocks out Venus – is indicated in blue. To the right are Moon and Venus as seen from the center of the Earth.
In your dawn sky, both are so near to the Sun – only 22° from it – that they are very slim crescents. To make them discernible, they are exaggerated in size, the Moon 2 times and Venus 150 times. So Venus, the subject of our interest, appears artificially the larger.
The yellow dot is Venus’s actual position, and the dotted trail is its path, in relation to the starry background, over 8 days before and 8 days after this moment. You can see that Venus will become “stationary” – reverse its direction and resume movement eastward – as it continues around its orbit ahead of us. This will happen on June 24, as measured in right ascension (in relation to the celestial equator), but 13 hours later, in June 25, in ecliptic terms.
“-45” means that the Moon at the time of the picture is only 45 hours before the New moment, when it passes the Sun.
Planet and Moon are performing their dance against the background of the Hyades, the loose cluster of stars making the face of Taurus, the bull constellation. But Moon, Venus, and the horizon are probably the only things in the picture that you have a hope of finding by eye, in this bright twilight. The rest are imaginary – not imaginary, but shown for reference, for the setting. The purple lines trace the shapes of constellations: the Bull’s two long horns with their points still below the horizon, and parts of Auriga to the left, Perseus above, and Cetus to the right.
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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor. One way: right-click, and choose “View image”, then enlarge. Or choose “Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
Sometimes I make improvements or corrections to a post after positing it. If you click on the title, rather than on ‘Read more’, I think you are sure to see the latest version.
This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.
I just checked the Amazon site and saw that your book is ranked #2, in Fantasy Erotica. Congratulations!
I’m hoping to get some photos of the daylight Moon through my 25mm pocket Borg telescope (the Japanese must have big pockets!).this is a very short focus refractor but sadly I can’t get it to focus to infinity with a star diagonal unless I add a Barlow lense and strangely the Barlow has to be between the scope and the diagonal if you stick it in the diagonal and then the eye piece in the Barlow you can’t gain infinity either.i have to use it as a normal telescope looking straight through which makes high objects a challenge.i might,if I get up, have a go at Venus with it as it’s low and won’t strain my neck.when you add the tripod,lenses and the scope itself it’s pretty much the size of a normal small refractor although very high quality.
Guy,
I’ll wait to order the book and avoid the behemoth
Thanks Guy.
I saw Venus yesterday for the first time during her current morning apparition. From my home a neighboring house (a residential care home for people with mental illnesses) blocks my view of the northeast horizon. So I haven’t been able to see Venus from the back porch. Since Venus’ inferior conjunction with the Sun we’ve had some clear weather, some cloudy mornings. The pandemic makes leaving the house a more involved undertaking than usual. And dawn comes early during the week before the solstice! So I had missed earlier opportunities. But yesterday morning I woke up early (about 3:45 am PDT) and the sky was very clear. After some binocular views of the stars and outer planets from the back yard, as dawn began to brighten I was motivated to put on my street clothes and a face mask to walk about a kilometer to Dolores Park, which has an open view to the northeast. Among the early morning dog walkers and joggers; and the homeless people starting their days, ending their long nights, or lost in the timeless depths of insanity; I stood looking across San Francisco Bay toward the east bay hills. Through image-stabilized binoculars the Moon and Venus were parallel crescents (Venus crescent and the Moon decrescent, if you will). It was quite a beautiful sight. Under normal circumstances I would have pointed out these two heavenly bodies to the passersby, and perhaps even have set up a little telescope so people could have a closer look. But with the difficulty of communicating through masks (and some people’s lack of masks!), the need to maintain social distance, the increased anxiety these days, and the consequent preciousness of a moment of early morning peace, I just enjoyed the view myself and didn’t bother anybody. I stuck around for sunrise at 5:54 (6 minutes after the official sunrise time; the east bay hills are higher than the park), walked home, washed up and had a short nap before starting work. I’m working from home most days, so my mornings are a little more flexible.
This morning Venus had moved far enough south to peek around the southern corner of the residential care home, so I could enjoy the Moon and Venus from the comfort, convenience, and safety of the back porch! I’m hoping for clear weather for tomorrow’s conjunction, but we should get an onshore flow of low clouds tonight and tomorrow morning. Ah well.
I’ll wait and get the Venus book through Ingram and my local bookshop. Amazon is very convenient for both self-publishers and readers, but because of Amazon’s monopolistic practices and inhumane working conditions I avoid buying from Amazon when possible.
It wouldn’t take much more to turn that into a short story or novella.
I hope the depths of insanity are indeed timeless.
Thank you, Guy. Just another day in the life … .
I think the timelessness of severe mental illness is one of the biggest barriers to recovery. People in despair can’t imagine anything ever getting better. People following really bad impulses can’t understand the consequences. And people who are severely disorganized can’t complete even the simplest multi-step task, like tying your shoes. In my work with clients I strive to reach some agreement that the future exists and could be different than the present.
By the way, on Monday I called a reference librarian at the San Francisco Public Library. The online OED is available to library card holders. The librarian explained the proper way to access the OED from the SFPL website, and it works just fine. So far I haven’t fallen into any rabbit holes.
Thank you, Mr. Barreiro, that was beautiful. Skies in Montreal have been too hazy to distinguish Venus in proximity to the moon last week, but i did get a lovely view of the old moon one morning. Have to wait for the lady to rise a bit higher.
Thank you, Ms. Barr. Best wishes for your first view of morning crescent Venus!
Looks beautiful! I would suggest that a better option for European fans might be buying through The Book Depository (anyway, an Amazon company).
Wow, yes, I found it is there already!
Carlos, could you explain whether this works only in Europe, and whether it is better than Amazon.
The Book Depository was a British on line bookshop shipping almost anywhere. There home page shows a dynamic world map where you can see where recent orders were placed and the books ordered (cool!). It competed so successfully with the giant that I in fact stopped ordering books from Amazon altogether and it felt good to do so–until, as we say in Spanish, ‘the large fish ate the small one”. Sadly now it is a fully owned Amazon company but almost always beats them in price and service (they more or less retained their way of doing things). What I like most is that they don’t charge apart for shipping so that you don’t need make extra calculations or trial shopping baskets, as I have to with other vendors. But this should be checked from other countries against Amazon many “national” websites. I also like their wishlist feature, which you can buid and organize in different sections and whait for them to alert you automatically when there is availability or price drops. But, above all things they don’t sell but books, so while your are working in their website–be it buying, browsing or building your wishlist–you don’t get interrupted or distracted by anything else!
Carlos, I looked again at the Book Depository page about “Venus, a longer view” to try to find the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) of the book they are selling, but I could not see it – can you? If its last two digits (before the final check digit) are 80 it’s printed by KDP (Amazon); if 81, it’s Ingram.
I thought I had answered your question, but may be I din’t press the ‘post’ button. The ISBN is shown in the ‘Product detalis’ section and is 9780934546812 (so, Ingram).