This last week, rising Venus passed Jupiter in the evening sky while the moon passed through the same field.  On Wednesday, June 17, 2026, at 2:27 p.m., in broad daylight through the space between clouds, I watched the unlit side of the moon pass in front of, blocking, the half-lit crescent Venus. It's a very cool thing to see one celestial sphere pass in front of another!  I missed Venus's emerging from the lit side of the waxing crescent moon at 3:36, but I saw it just a few minutes after.  Of course, the moon and Venus appeared to be the same shape because they were both lit by the sun and were the same angle from the sun from my view!

I did snap a few pictures this week.  All were taken with the Canon R8, the wider field with the 35mm f/1.8 STM and the narrow moon and Venus pics through the AT60ED with the 1x flattener.

This is the moon approaching Venus the night before. Venus is the bright one, and Jupiter is between it and the moon.  The two bright stars to the right of Jupiter are Pollux and Castor.

These are the moon just after the conjunction. This is pretty much how the pair looked through binoculars.