Venus Halo

Despite being veiled by high level cirrus clouds, the planet Venus shines at an apparent magnitude of -4.00, creating a small halo as seen from Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa around 5:45 PM, Thursday, January 5, 2012. Also seen left and above the planet are stars in the constellation Capricornus. Venus reaches a maximum magnitude of -4.6 as seen from Earth. This image looks southwest and was created with a 4 second exposure at f/6.3, 1600 ISO and a 40mm focal length. The temperature at this moment was a very balmy 53 degrees F--much more spring-like than the "dead" of winter! Indeed, much of Eastern Iowa saw record high temperatures on this day with Cedar Rapids topping out at 59 degrees, breaking the old mark of 54 degrees set in 1956. It was dry "heat" though, with very low humidity due to the prolonged lack of snow cover.