Opposite the Setting Sun
Image Credit &
Copyright:
Roy Spencer
On April 30, a
Full Moon
rose opposite the setting Sun.
Its yellowish moonglow silhouettes a low tree-lined ridge
along Lewis Mountain in this northeastern Alabama skyscape.
Sharing
the telephoto field-of-view opposite the Sun
are Earth's grey shadow, the pinkish Belt of Venus, and bright
planet Jupiter.
Nearing its own 2018 opposition on
May 8,
Jupiter is
flanked by tiny pinpricks of light, three of its large Galilean moons.
Europa lies just below Jupiter, and Ganymede and Callisto are
just above.
Closer and brighter, our own natural satellite appears to loom large
but the Moon is physically a little smaller
than Ganymede and
Callisto, and
slightly larger than
water
world Europa.
Sharp eyes will also spot the trails of two jets across the clear evening
sky.