Overview

• Early on Friday, a thin waning crescent clustered within about a degree of brilliant Venus and the star Regulus, creating one of 2025’s tightest groupings.
• The Moon occulted Venus along tracks spanning parts of Europe, Greenland, northern Canada, Russia, Asia and Africa, while Regulus briefly disappeared behind the Moon over remote Arctic Siberia.
• Best views came roughly 60–90 minutes before sunrise with the lunar crescent about 5–6% illuminated and Venus near 89–90% phase.
• The configuration’s appearance varied by location, with a pronounced “smile” seen from Yukon and Alaska and a near-vertical line along the U.S. East Coast.
• The event was widely photographed worldwide, and skywatching now shifts to Saturn’s Sept. 21 opposition and a deep partial solar eclipse on Sept. 22 in the South Pacific and Antarctic region.