Venus

Last night we were watching the beautiful sunset from our living room windows. (No picture) Then Michael noticed that a planet was visible in the sky. (Very exciting picture to the left.) It was west of the moon and closer to the horizon. After prodigious use of the internet, we have learned the following items:
- The planet we are viewing is Venus
- Venus has phases just like the moon. Right now we are in the little crescent phase which is visible with the 45x magnification of Michael's spotting scope.*
- The moon and Venus look like a perfect little matched set right now.

We were extremely surprised to see any of the night sky let alone a tiny planet. Glad to know that the crazy howling wind has at least one benefit.

*We would like to add a special 'thank you' to some of Cara's old working buddies in Florida. While the spotting scope's magnification was required to view Venus, we could never have held it in place if not for a certain 'digital' tripod that the team generously bestowed upon Cara before her trip to Washington. Furthermore, the tripod was put to its true use when an actual, 10x, 3.2 mega-pixel, (complete with its own leather carrying case) Pentax Optio took the picture above. Aren't you guys proud?