Moon & Venus

When somebody sees a bright star and asks: "Whos' that?" I always say: "That's the planet Venus." Is it? Who knows, but Venus is the planet closest to earth. Anyway, early this morning (about 4 AM) I saw the Moon beside one of them very bright "stars". I said to myself: "That's the planet Venus." Alas, I'm probably just as gullible as others, so (to be sure) I looked at my very sexy SkyMap and found this: I went back to bed feeling oh so clever. Now I just have to figure out what that means. ------------------------------------------- I'm lousy at imagining the sun-moon-earth configuration. Once upon a time I convinced several people (as gullible as I) that the Moon follows the path of the Sun. Alas, it must have been lunacy on my part, 'cause I can clearly see (after hours of staring at both) that the moon does not follow the sun ... tho' it's close. In fact (after a Google or three), I discover that the Moon's path is about 5 degrees from the Sun's path (at maximum separation).