Venus, brighter than any star, can cast a reflection on water, and even a shadow.
See the end note about enlarging illustrations. Arrows through the planets show their movement over 5 days, and the crescent of Venus is shown, enlarged 150 times.
But can that shadow be seen? The planet is just about at its brightest (the calculated peak, at magnitude -4.65, comes on Feb. 9).
From the “Magnitude” graph in Astronomical Calendar 2022
But it’s low in our morning sky. Even in ideal conditions, the Venus shadow is so subtle that it has rarely, if ever, been discerned by human eyes. Maybe groundhog eyes are sharper.
Tomorrow morning (2022-02-02), when that legendary groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, comes up out of his burrow and waits for the Sun to rise – knowing that if he sees his shadow the next six weeks will stay wintry – he may catch sight of his Venus-shadow first. Then if a cloud comes over and the Sun rises, what to do? Go back to bed for six weeks or not? He may decide the Venus shadow is so slight it’s worth only one week more of winter, or one hour.
I think there are names for people born on special days, such as Valentine’s or leap day. Happy birthday to Tor and all Ground Piglets, whether in Pennsylvania (where Punxsutawney is) or Portugal.
Home Planet Department
Most of the news is as dire as if it came from the roasting and poisonous surface of Venus. On top of the sufferings inflicted by nature, drought, starvation, wildfire, tsunami, and plague, why do we need religious fanaticism, inter-group hatreds, anti-science disinformation? The only bright spot I can think of at the moment is that Portugal on January 30 re-elected, with a surprise absolute majority, the Socialist government of António Costa, which has done much, and is likely to do more, toward making that small country more prosperous, safe, and fair.
Weather over Europe today
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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 publishing it. If you click on the title, rather than on ‘Read more’, I think you are sure to see the latest version. Or you can click ‘Refresh’ to get the latest version.
This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.
I managed to catch the shadow cast by Venus light on April 19, 2020 from my backyard in Owen Sound Ontario. The planet was magnitude -4.5 and stood 15 degrees above the western horizon. The shadow was just detectable by naked eye, and a 30 s exposure at 6000 ISO recorded it successfully. The secret is to use a while background and make sure the site is dark and there are no extraneous light sources nearby shining on your screen. Image is posted near bottom of home page at my website http://www.johns-astronomy.com or directly here https://www.johns-astronomy.com/resources/IMG_178895_835K.jpeg
A close friend has a forested space that was invaded by groundhogs. His “live and let live” attitude changed after they gnawed several holes in the wall of his observatory.
He declared war on them and the increasing number of ticks he blamed on the groundhogs. He theorized the ticks thrived around their “towns,” swelling up, dropping off and breeding there. In all, he managed to close 9 colonies and to evict their inhabitants using methods he does not wish to be publicize.
Ironically, at the end of 2021 he was diagnosed with Lyme disease. No doubt a result of his “working” near their habitats.
I was in Canberra for Candlemas. We celebrated with a procession and sung mass.
It’s normally a very warm and humid feast day, but this year it was unseasonably cool. It was a welcome change.
Quite a lot of the celestial objects can cast a reflection on water.The Sun and Moon are obvious ones but I’ve seen; Venus, Jupiter, Sirius and Canopus reflecting on still water.Other first magnitude stars probably can and Mars and Saturn too? Jupiter was doing it last year when I use to walk home up a wet beach.Today is the ancient festival of Imbloc which was Christianized becoming Candlemas.Strangley, despite being completely secular,I have been in two churches today on Candlemas.One to have some food in it’s cafe as I awaited my train.The other, Hexham Abbey, because of cancelled trains and wandering around Hexham for 1hr 20 minutes waiting for the next one!
You’ve got an extra “wa” in there. It’s Punxsutawney Phil, not Punxsuwatawny Phil.
So I hahave!