
Explanation: On December 1, bright planets Venus and Jupiter gathered near the young crescent Moon, an inspiring
celestial scene in early evening skies
around the world. But from
some locations the Moon actually passed in front of Venus, interrupting the tight grouping with a lunar occultation. Captured from Wildon, Austria,
this twilight view shows the silvery
evening star about five minutes before it
slipped behind the dark lunar limb and vanished from sight for more than hour. The image is a combination of long and short exposures showing details of the lunar surface illuminated by both faint
earthshine and bright sunlight. In the inset, recorded later in darkened
skies over Breil-sur-Roya in southeastern France, a dazzling Venus has reappeared below the bright lunar crescent. Of course, Jupiter, at the upper right about 2 degrees from Venus and Moon, is
sporting moons of its own seen as tiny pinpricks of light on either side of the bright planet.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap081204.html