h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This morning before the sun was up, I looked up into the deep blue of the pre-dawn sky and saw a beautiful crescent old moon, with Venus beside it. It was very beautiful, so I took a photo of it, but it probably didn't come out.

Later on my way to work, while standing waiting for the traffic lights at the canal bridge to change, I looked up again. The sun was just rising but wasn't yet high enough to light the ground, just the tops of the trees. Everybdoy else was fiercely watching the traffic and the traffic lights, but I watched two swans flying along above the canal, lit up by the rising sun.

Then the sunlight reached me and I saw the sun glowing merrily. Looking up again, I could still see the crescent moon very faintly, and because I remembered where it was from earlier, I was still able to see Venus, a pinpoint of white in the daytime sky.

Isn't Venus called both the 'morning star' and the 'evening star'?

Yes. Because it's closer to the sun than us, it is never more than about 60 degrees from the sun, so it is never up in the middle of the night.

Arthur C Clarke always claimed that you could see Venus during the day if you knew where to look, but I had only ever once done so, and on that occasion the sun was setting and I was in shadow. This time, the sun was shining in my face, and I could still see Venus.

What a lovely description Gnomon

My sunrise this morning was glorious, very colourful with pinks and purples after a whole night's rainfall. Very dull here now though, lots of cloud and quite windy.

I was up very early the other morning and had a great view of sparkling Venus, the brightest thing next to the .