NavList:

I have always found it fascinating to find Venus in the daytime sky; but it always takes me awhile, even when I have the azimuth and altitude from the USNO website.  The first time I was able to view it, I mistook it for a weather balloon.....finally realizing that no, this was the planet I was searching for.

Two days ago I was out looking for it in the sky; the moon was also visable.  Suddenly it dawned on me that I could use the moon's position in the sky to narrow down my search for Venus.  Having the azimuth and altitude both readily available from the USNO website, my search was narrowed from the normal 5 to 10 minutes, to about 1 minute. They were both in the same area of the sky. 

 This was with a pair of Fujinon Polaris Binocs. I pulled the telescope off my sextant and found it right away as well.

I guess if I was at sea, I could dial in the altitude on my sextant and point myself toward the azimuth, but alas I am landlocked and was too lazy to get out my first surface mirror artificial horizon.  I will save that for another day.

This is probably patently obvious for most here, but a neat surprise for me- always learning.

Cheers,

Doug