Belt of Venus over the Samperi Sea

The skies of Sicily continue to put on a show and (again) conquer NASA. A crazy snapshot depicting the moon in an eclipse in the so-called “belt of venus” On the Sampiri Sea, in Sicily. Image courtesy of the Sicilian Astrophotograph Marcella Julia Paceby NASA as picture of the day.

Screenshot from the title “Earth Shadows”, because they paint the shadows of the earth. The image shows what is known in astronomy as the “belt of Venus,” which is visible to the naked eye only under certain atmospheric conditions.

The moon is in eclipse immersed in the belt of Venus on the Sea of ​​Sampiri in Sicily. #APOD Gorgeous Italian by Marcella Giulia Pace. The belt of Venus, that blue-violet band above the horizon that can only be observed in certain atmospheric conditions, is nothing but the earth’s shadow projected onto our atmosphere: the moon was actually rising in the east while the sun had just set in the west, on the opposite horizon », he explains. Astronomical Observatory of the University of Siena.

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“Sunset shadows color the sky, but there is much more to be seen in this wonderful image: two shadows produced by Earth – we read in SardAstro’s specialized blog – the first is the dark lower band, highlighted by sky conditions that allowed excellent visibility of the upper pink shade called the “belt of Venus”. The dark band is the Earth’s shadow cast on the atmosphere, in contrast to the high-altitude upper band which still receives direct sunlight.

The second shadow – he continues – requires us to sharpen our gaze and we must look at the moon. On the day of filming, July 27, 2018, there was a stunning lunar eclipse. The small dark part of the moon’s disk testifies to the moments when our satellite entered, around 20:20, the region of the totality of the eclipse, or rather the cone of shadow that the Earth casts into space ».

We advise you to view the photo on the site Full Accuracy NASA-Apod.

Not only the moon, in the picture you can also admire the ruins of Fornace Penna, called “u stabilimentu burnt” and made famous by the popular TV series “Il commissario Montalbano”, becoming “Mannara”.

Thanks to its television fame, this large secular cathedral by the sea, with a chimney instead of a bell tower, finally came out of oblivion and the project of safety and recovery became concrete (we talked about it in our article).

This is not the first time that the Sicilian astrophotographer has done so Marcella Julia Pace Cited by NASA. Last year, a photo of it, taken in Marina di Ragusa, was chosen by the US space agency because it depicts a circular arc, also known as a smiling rainbow.