For those out in about in the early hours this morning, you may have been treated to an unusual site, the moon and venus right next to each other in the sky. This dance between the moon and venus has been going on for a few months, but this morning, the crescent moon actually passed in front of a crescent venus (known as an occultation in astronomy).

I’m not what you would call a morning person (I much prefer to shoot in the late evening), but I drug myself out of bed to take some pictures of this. This conjunction was bright enough that I could actually shoot it from my front yard, without having to drive away from the bright lights.

Note: Click on the thumbnail of each image to see a larger version.

Technical Notes: All pictures were taken on my Nikon D200 with the Sigma 50-500mm lens, tripod mounted with a cable release.