The planet Venus Friday evening (Dec 27). Venus is that very bright 'star' in the SW evening sky. Through the telescope, notice that Venus is a gibbous shaped object as it has phases like our moon. Currently, Venus is waning in shape but is growing larger in size and will slowly brighten even more over the next several weeks dominating the evening skies through springtime. The telescope that I used was the Celestron 11" EdgeHD

Venus appears featureless as it is shrouded with a thick layer of clouds with an atmosphere composed mainly of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and water vapor. This results in a greenhouse effect of mega proportions. If Venus had an atmosphere similar to earth's, its average global temperature would be around 125°F (51.7°C) but instead, spacecrafts have measured surface temperature of around 850°F (454°C) as a result of this 'run-away' greenhouse effect.

Celestron 11" Edge HD Telescope

Stacked in AutoStakkert1 and post processed in Photoshop CC