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Credit & Copyright: Adam Tomaszewski
Explanation:
On June 30 Venus and Jupiter were actually far apart, but both
appeared close in western skies at dusk.
Near the culmination of this year's
gorgeous conjunction,
the two bright evening planets are captured in the same telescopic
field of view in this sharp digital
stack of images
taken after sunset from Poznań in west-central Poland.
In fact, banded gas giant Jupiter was about 910 million kilometers
from Poland.
That's over 11 times farther than crescent Venus, only 78 million
kilometers distant at the time.
But since the diameter of giant planet Jupiter is over 11 times
larger than Venus both planets show about the same
angular size.
Of course, 16th century Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus
would also have enjoyed the simultaneous telescopic view
including Jupiter's four Galilean moons and a crescent Venus.
Observations of Jupiter's moons and Venus' crescent phase
were evidence for
the
Copernican or heliocentric model of the solar system.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: conjunction - angular size - Copernicus - Galileo
Publications with words: conjunction - angular size - Copernicus - Galileo
See also: