Venus

Although it is nice and quiet at three in the morning, my early observing session wasn't entirely motivated by the relaxed ambiance. Not only is my photo collection dominated by images of a waxing Moon, but I was also without any pictures of Venus. As many people know, Venus is a planet that is very easy to find (because it's the brightest object in the sky barring the Sun and Moon) but it's only visible near to sunrise and sunset (because it's relatively close to the Sun). Sunset presents a problem for me since my house sits between my telescope and the western horizon. So if I want to observe Venus I need to be outside just before morning twilight.

Although the picture below isn't all that thrilling it does illustrate something that a lot of people don't know, probably because they've never really thought about it - Venus has phases similarly to the Moon.

A new cycle of phases begins everytime Venus passes (or under-takes) the Earth in its orbit, which is roughly 584 days. Much more frequent than how often I can be bothered to get up at three in the morning to look at it.