Monday 25 June 2018

DESKTOP 1790 - VENUS, MOON, SUN

Except for the Sun, the Moon and Venus are the two brightest objects in the sky. You just can’t miss them. Astronomers measure relative brightness of objects in the sky with a term called magnitude.

The Sun has the highest magnitude of any object in the sky, at -26.73 apparent magnitude. The brightness of the Moon, for comparison, has a magnitude of -12.6. These numbers are done on a logarithmic scale. So the brightness of the Sun is actually 449,000 times brighter than the full moon. The maximum brightness of Venus is -4.7 magnitude, which is a fraction of the brightness of the Moon (and the Sun!).

Here is a composite image of Venus, the crescent moon and the sun, setting.

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
and also part of the Through my Lens meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme,
and also part of the Blue Monday.

6 comments:

  1. Interesting info! And great photo.

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  2. Fascinating shots, and a really interesting lesson in astronomy!

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  3. I love astronomy! Beautiful!

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  4. What an amazing mosaic! I had to look at it for awhile to see the different photos! WOW!

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  5. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

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  6. I won't remember it, but thanks for the info about how brightness is measured :) Fabulous photo. I am contemplating getting up for the eclipse at the end of July...

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