Like the Moon, Venus does show phases. Galileo Galilei was the first to observe the phases of Venus. If Venus's motion were confined to a Ptolemaic epicycle in an orbit between the Moon and the Sun, Venus would never show any phase but a crescentâ€"but Galileo observed a full range of phases, from waxing crescent to "first quarter" to waxing gibbous to full to waning gibbous to "last quarter" to waning crescent to "new." Such phases proved inexplicable by the Ptolemaic model and constituted the strongest evidence in favor of Nicolaus Copernicus's model of heliocentricity.[13] Venus's waxing phases are on its left side, whereas the Moon's waxing phases are on its right side. This shows that Venus moves about the Sun in the same direction that the Moon moves around the earth. During an evening of star gazing, using the Meade Telescope, I managed to capture, what I consider this unusual set of photographs of Venus,. Visually, through the telescope, the sight was much more profo! und,. There was a relatively clear image, with only half a planet visible! I was still happily debating that this was in fact Jupiter,... but through information provided via night sky Ipad app, the only mention of planets with waxing/waning phases was Venus, so I had to go with that. I do adimt, usually Jupiter is clearer in vision,with easy to sight at least four moons However, I also thought that Venus went below the horizon earlier than Jupiter,,,, ( must be wrong here) I have often seen both, with
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