Venus in conjunction with the Sun.

The little crescent shape you can see here isn’t the Moon, it’s Venus as observed in daytime. Venus in fact is so bright that you can see it in daylight - if you know where to find it - and often, with the right precautions, even when it is nearest to the Sun.

The bottom photo in fact was snapped near noon on January 8, 2022, only a few hours after Venus' inferior conjunction of 2022. The planet was almost exactly between the Sun and the Earth and only 5 degrees away from the solar disk. I was able to detect it through a binocular and photograph it by hiding the Sun behind the globe placed atop the Church of Santa Maria del Buon Consiglio in Naples, Italy (here visible on the left).

The top photo was snapped near noon on September 18, 2022, about 30 days before Venus' superior conjunction that occours on 22 October 2022. Due to the clear sky, the planet was visible to the naked eye, even if it was 9 degrees from the solar disk only. I was able to photograph it by hiding the Sun behind the roof of the Basilica of St. Paulus in Rome, (here visible on the right).

The mosaic shows the different sizes and shapes of the planet in these two points of its orbit as it appears from the Earth. In January Venus' size was about 60,1'', that is six times nearer and bigger than in September, when its diameter was about 9,86'' and only about 0,15'' more than its superior conjunction of this October.

The snap of January was EPOD on July 13 2022.

Best regards
Paolo Palma

Single snaps without any telescope.

Nikon 42x camera; Coolpix 510; 4.3; 180mm 1:3-5.9.
Naples: ISO 100 and 1/1250s
Rome: ISO 200 and 1/1000s

Cropped with GIMP