NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2020 Apr 6, 21:19 -0700
Today I watched Venus dead on the meridian at azimuth 180° and way up at 73° altitude. As usual I started with binoculars. It was a little tough because the sky was just a bit lighter and whiter. But I found it, walked it to a tree limb, lowered the binoculars, and there it was -- naked eye Venus. I could see it plainly as long as I had that little tree limb pointing at it. A few minutes later, the cause of that slightly whiter sky appeared. Cirrus clouds started drifting in. Amazingly I never lost sight of Venus as those high, thin clouds passed in front of it. I'm sure if I had looked away or stepped away from the tree limb alignment, I never would have found it again in that cloudy haze. But as long as I kept it in sight, I saw Venus steadily through clouds. Venus through clouds in daylight!
I snapped this photo about two minutes after watching Venus pass through the clouds. This was a smartphone photo so you can't see the planet, but it was there.
Frank Reed
