NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2026 September 15 featured a single exposure of a daytime occultation of Venus by the Moon, captured above the small village of Cessy, France, around noon on 2026 September 14, according to the entry. The image credited to Arnaud Mariat shows the Moon emerging from behind clouds and a bright dot — Venus — appearing from behind it.

Both bodies appeared to show a crescent phase in the exposure. The Moon's crescent was slight, with only about 10 percent of its face illuminated by the Sun, while Venus's crescent was more full at about 25 percent illumination, the entry states. It attributes Venus's greater brightness to its being nearer the Sun and its clouds being more reflective than the dark lunar surface.

The entry notes that an occultation of Venus by the Moon is visible to only about 10 percent of the Earth, and that during the September 14 event even most of that area was experiencing daytime. The account also mentions that APOD's main NASA site is moving from apod.nasa.gov to science.nasa.gov/apod.