Crescent Moon and Venus

We have all seen the Moon during the day, but not many people know that the planet Venus is also visible during the day. It's generally not visible to the naked eye, but if you know where to look you can easily spot it with binoculars or a small telescope. The image above, taken by Ivan Eder in Budapest, Hungary, shows not only a daytime crescent Moon but a crescent Venus just to the left of the Moon. The image captures an incredible distance range of millions of kilometers and reminds the viewer of the importance of perspective. Venus is much larger than the Moon but because it is so distant it appears almost insignificant in this image. How is it that Venus is visible during the day? Venus is actually one of the brightest objects in our sky. Completely shrouded in cloud cover, it reflects an enormous amount of sunlight into space. Being relatively close to the Earth it becomes a very bright object in our sky, bright enough to overcome a brilliant blue sky.