Venus Over Roanoke, VA.

Roanoke, VA is one of my favorite places to visit; I love the mountains, the wineries and the clear skies.  I snapped this pic of Venus leaving a restaurant on a low hill. It's funny to think that, when I was a kid, many scientists thought Venus might be a jungle or ocean planet with abundant life. It looks so serene and cool in the evening sky; very unlike the place where, as Sir Patrick Moore pointed out, if you went out without a space suit, you would be simultaneously, "squashed, poisoned, and fried!" The bright spot above the central gap in the hills (click image for a bigger image) is not, I believe, Mercury, but a plane. I did not notice it when I took the pic and it is not on the other pix I took a minute or so earlier.