2007 02 20, Diana’s Bow and Venus

Date 2007 02 20, Time 0008 UT – Erika Rix
Location +39deg 12’, +82deg, -5 hours

Canon Rebel 350XT, Sigma 70-300mm with tripod
270mm, ISO100, 0.02sec, f/5.0

Venus:
Constellation Pisces
AZ 256 deg 10.561’
Alt 13 deg 25.959’
RA 23h 55.549m
Dec –1 deg 38.712’
Distance 1.4406au
Radius 6051km
Apparent Magnitude -3.95

Moon:
AZ 257 deg 19’
Alt 18 deg 14’
RA 0 deg 6m 3.1s
Dec 02 deg 01’46”
Distance 360034km
Apparent Diameter 33.19
Lunation 2.33d
Illumination 7.7%
Solar inclination –0.4deg

Artemis was an ancient Greek goddess of hunt, wilderness, and animals (to name a few), carrying bow and arrows. She was the daughter of Zeus and Leto. Overtime, other names associated with her were Selene (Titan Greek moon goddess) and Diana (Roman Goddess). The crescent of the 3-day moon is said to look like a bow, hence “Diana’s Bow”. It almost looks like a glowing sliver bursting out of the shadowed moon.

The Romans named the planet Venus after their goddess of love and beauty. In reality, it has an extremely hot, toxic atmosphere with volcanic activity.

Excerpt from NASA’s Solar System Exploration websites:

Venus is a dim world of intense heat and volcanic activity. Similar in structure and size to Earth, Venus’ thick, toxic atmosphere traps heat in a runaway ‘greenhouse effect.’ The scorched world has temperatures hot enough to melt lead. Glimpses below the clouds reveal volcanoes and deformed mountains. Venus spins slowly in the opposite direction of most planets.

The two sketches below were created during observations (two years after my photograph) showing subtle hints details on Venus.