On Wednesday morning, June 17, you can watch the dark edge of the slim waxing crescent Moon pass in front of brilliant Venus from Santa Barbara’s point of view. Because the sky will be bright enough to overwhelm the shadowed portion of the Moon, Venus will appear to wink out while still in blue sky.
Find a spot in the shade to hide the Sun and make viewing the event easier. At about 11:30 AM PDT, you’ll find the Moon almost due East in the sky at an azimuth of about 85 degrees and an altitude of about 33 degrees. That’s about three fist widths of your outstretched arm.
Look for the bright spark of Venus at about the five thirty o’clock position on the shadowed side of the Moon. Be set and watching closely at 11:36 AM, and within the next two minutes, the Moon should completely cover Venus. If using binoculars or a telescope, you may detect that Venus has a gibbous phase.
About an hour later, you can watch Venus pop out from behind the illuminated edge of the crescent at about the 1:30 o’clock position at around 12:42 PM PDT.
These times are for my home in Noleta, so if you’re more than 50 miles away, pad them by a minute or so, or generate your own times with planetarium software. The times and Moon images are from SkySafari Pro, but almost any app will do.
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