Venus Corona Over Mount Tai

An amazingly strong Venus Corona forms above one of the historic gates on Mount Tai (Tai Shan), the most sacred mountain in China (traditionally one of the nation’s Five Great Mountains), where the emperors used to visit to pray for the country’s safety. Located in Shandong province, Mount Tai has been a place of worship for at least 3000 years and served as one of the most important ceremonial centers of China.

A World Heritage site today, thousands of people visit Tai Shan every clear morning to see the sunrise from the emperors mountain. Steps full of people are captured in this image an hour before sunrise on August 24. Dazzling Venus is enveloped in a corona, forms by diffraction from small droplets in fogs, mists and clouds. From the Atmospheric Optics: “Corona around the Moon is fairly common but ones around a planet are rare because they are usually too faint to perceive.” Click on the second photo to see a landscape (horizontal) image of this scene.