On Friday the 13th of January, 2006, the planet Venus was only 5.5 degrees north of the sun from Earth's perspective. Only 1% of the visible side was illuminated. I observed it from Mason Park in Los Angeles at around noon, for a couple of hours, as storm clouds were approaching. The seeing was reasonably good, and there were hints of the light wrapping all the way around the planet. Here's a snapshot I made by hand-holding my camera with a 50mm lens up to the 14mm eyepiece of my home-made 8" f/5 telescope.

Jupiter