Venus, the Moon and Jupiter

This was my view of the morning sky, looking east toward the Chicago lakefront, early Thursday morning January 31, 2019. A very cold, near record breaking -19 degrees Fahrenheit. To offset the weather's harshness, Mother Nature gave us this gift.

To the left of the familiar crescent moon is Venus, typically the brightest object in the morning sky, outside of the moon, itself. Above and to the right of the moon, much fainter in this low quality image, is Jupiter. The fact that these celestial objects can be connected with a straight line is not a coincidence. All planets in the solar system lie upon the same plane known as the ecliptic. The fact that this line is at angle to the horizon demonstrates that the earth is tilted relative to this plane. (The Cosmology Cadet strikes again!)

Taken with an ordinary cell phone camera, this photo hardly does justice to the beauty of one morning's pre-dawn heavenly radiance, but you get the idea.