NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2025 Jan 31, 13:36 -0800
Around 2:30 local time tomorrow, February 1, Venus will be near the meridian. Great for a latitude sight in the middle of the day. Observers in North America (especially) have it easy. Venus will be just 3° above the crescent Moon. Draw a line through the Moon's horns and follow it north "one inch" (an inch at "casual" arm's length, like 19 inches, is just about 3`). If you have nice clear skies, look for that slim, pale Moon... An app may help. Then look just above it. See it? No? Then try it with a pair of binoculars, or a sextant scope. Now it's easy, yes? And if you have timed it right, Venus should be approaching meridian passage. Grab your sextant and get a latitude by Venus. Then spin about and shoot a Sun altitude for a synchronized longitude! Observers in other parts of the world, the Moon will be "near" Venus, but not as good as on this side of the globe...
More on Venus in daylight... coming soon.
Inferior conjunctions or Venus occur in nearly the same place in the sky every eight years. This one is a "little fish loop". Venus will be spending the next three months looping in the immediate vicinity of one of the "fish" of Pisces just below the Great Square of Pegasus.
I took the photo, attached below, in daylight last week when Venus was floating above the chimney on the roof of my apartment. Just a common phone photo, no magnification or special hardware.
Frank Reed
