Venus at inferior solar conjunction

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Inner Planets feed


Objects: Venus

Venus will pass very close to the Sun in the sky as its orbit carries it between the Sun and Earth.

This occurs once in every synodic cycle of the planet (584 days), and marks the end of Venus's apparition in the evening sky and its transition to become a morning object over the next few weeks.

At closest approach, Venus will appear at a separation of only 0°49' from the Sun, making it totally unobservable for several weeks while it is lost in the Sun's glare.

Venus will also pass perigee – the time when it is closest to the Earth – at around the same time, since it will lie on exactly the same side of the Sun as the Earth in the Solar System. It will move to within a distance of 0.29 AU from the Earth, making it appear with its largest angular size. If it could be observed, it would measure 57.9 arcsec in diameter, whilst appearing completely unilluminated.

The position of Venus at the moment it passes solar conjunction will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Angular Size
Venus 04h37m20s 22°54'N Taurus 57.9"
Sun 04h37m 22°05'N Taurus 31'32"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 1 Jun 2028

The sky on 1 June 2028
Sunrise
05:19
Sunset
20:19
Twilight ends
22:23
Twilight begins
03:16


Waxing Gibbous

67%

8 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 05:35 12:53 20:10
Venus 05:17 12:47 20:16
Moon 14:25 20:16 01:55
Mars 04:28 11:42 18:55
Jupiter 13:01 19:25 01:50
Saturn 03:43 10:27 17:10
All times shown in EDT.

Warning

Never attempt to point a pair of binoculars or a telescope at an object close to the Sun. Doing so may result in immediate and permanent blindness.

Source

The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.

Related news

24 Mar 2028  –  Venus at highest altitude in evening sky
11 Aug 2028  –  Venus at greatest elongation west
01 Sep 2028  –  Venus at highest altitude in morning sky
27 Oct 2029  –  Venus at greatest elongation east

Image credit

© NASA/Ricardo Nunes

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