See Venus rendezvous with the crescent moon in the night sky tonight (Oct. 5)

In an orange circle in a dark starry sky with red clouds, a crecent labeled moon and venus shine.Blue lines from a triangle intersecting the circle, tracing a constellation.

On Saturday evening (Oct. 5) as darkness is falling, be sure to take a look low toward the west-southwest part of the sky for a beautiful celestial tableau formed by a lovely crescent moon and the brilliant planet Venus. 

The moon will appear to hover about 4-degrees below and to the left of Venus. Your clenched fist held at arm’s length measures roughly 10-degrees. So, the moon and Venus will appear to be less than a "half a fist" apart. These Venus-moon rendezvous occur on roughly a monthly schedule. Indeed, if Venus were stationary and did not appear to move against the star background, then a Venus-moon encounter would occur every 27 days, 7 hours and 43 minutes.