AN ASTRONOMICAL APPARITION
An astronomical apparition refers to some heavenly event worth seeing. It might not be expected or it might be predictable, and periodic. Like events might have occured many times. And the event might be close to new.
For the first few months of 2012 the planets Jupiter and Venus, the two brightest 'stars' in the sky, have been near the sun, appearing in the evening sky close to sunset, and setting a couple of hours after the sun. During these months the moon has circled the earth once a month and appeared close to the two planets for part of each circle.
The three bodies appear in the twilight of sunset, probably in March. The moon is the largest. Venus is closest to the moon and Jupiter is higher and alone in the sky. In a couple of days the moon will have moved close to Jupiter.
This is a zoom of the nearly full moon, no longer close to the planets. It is hard to get a camera still enough to catch a dim object in a darkening sky; without the camera recording the slight movements. It is hard to do this with body support and a camera tripod. I tried for several nights before getting a blur free photo.
A month has passed and the moon has moved around the heaven. In the meantime the planets have also moved. Jupiter is too close to the sun to be seen and Venus has moved and will soon be in the glare of the sun also.