Tuesday, January 19, 2002 about 5:30am CT: Leonids

Well, I went out intending to watch the last of the Leonids. I only saw 3. The first thing I saw was more interesting, though: the International Space Station. Pretty cool! It was magnitude -1 (at least) while it was in the west and dimmed as is went south. The sky was very clear and Jupiter and Venus were extremely bright. I lay down to watch the Leonids but I just kept thinking about Venus. I think I read somewhere where it was supposed to be closer to us now than it would be in 53,000 years(?) I can't remember the exact number of years but I think I have the order of magnitude right. Then I noticed the moon. It was full, red and HUGE! -like a harvest moon. Interesting, since I've never seen a harvest moon in the morning. It set shortly in the NW. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I jumped up and ran to get the scope. I did a check low power look at Jupiter - thinking "yeah, that was Jupiter". Next I sighted in Venus in my 15mm wth green filter. I couldn't believe it. It was 4 times the brightness of Jupiter and it was a tiny, slim crescent! I've always wanted to see Venus as a crescent. I've seen it dimished a bit but never like this.