Celestial Collaboration

The planet Venus, shining at a brilliant magnitude of -4.07, collaborates within seven degrees of a waxing crescent moon in the southwest sky as seen from the grounds at Echo Hill Presbyterian Church in Marion, Iowa around 6:12 PM, Thursday, January 26, 2012. C Avenue runs horizontally across the image just below the tree line in the background. Cloud cover that had dissipated over an hour before was beginning to return as evidenced by the clouds on the horizon. Despite the snow cover, air temperature at this hour was a relatively mild 36 degrees F. This photo is the product of a 4.5-second exposure at f/8, 800 ISO, 18mm focal length.