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Message:: [QUOTE="-jeffB, post: 4346573, member: 27832"]I remember being out one evening long ago with my small and non-verbal but sharp-eyed son, admiring Venus. I pointed to it, and said, "That's Venus." He looked at it, grinned widely, and made the sign for... moon. It was on its way out of the evening sky, and so was a relatively thin and large crescent. It's theoretically possible for someone with exceptional vision to tell that with the naked eye. For my corrected-to-just-normal vision, it looked funny, but I couldn't resolve it. I said, "Does it look like a tiny moon to you?" He nodded vigorously. I said, "Which way is it pointing?" I figured that would be the end of it, because he had no concept of how moon and planetary phases worked. He held his hand up, making the sign, pointed in the right direction. I think I went on to talk about why it looked like that, but his attention was probably elsewhere by then. I never did manage to pass the astronomy bug along to him. That's fine; he's got more than enough other redeeming qualities.[/QUOTE]