Rhonda Bracey: At Random

Last night we were driving back from Balingup and low in the crystal clear western sky was a terrific sight—a sliver of a moon topped by Jupiter and Venus. Tonight’s meant to be even better as the planets and the moon line up into a ‘smiley face’—at least in Western Australia. Even nicer is that Sagittarius (my star sign) and Capricorn (my Mum’s) are in the picture.

Planets and moon in a smiley face configuration

More information:

• http://www.astrovisuals.com.au/Events.html
• http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/blog/?p=1428
• http://www.skymaps.com/events/20081201/index.html

Update 9:00pm: I took a photo at 8:30pm. My (old) digital camera doesn’t have a way to stop or minimise camera shake, so there’s a little bit of shake in the photo, even though I steadied my arm against a back veranda post. Here’s my photo:

My photo of the smiley face