© NASA/Ricardo Nunes

Venus at greatest brightness

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Inner Planets feed

Objects: Venus
Please wait
Loading 0/4
Click and drag to rotate
Mouse wheel to zoom in/out
Touch with mouse to dismiss
The sky at

Venus will reach its greatest brightness in its 1999 evening apparition. It will be shining brightly at mag -4.5.

From Fairfield , this apparition will be well placed and prominent, reaching a peak altitude of 36° above the horizon at sunset on 10 May 1999.

Begin typing the name of a town near to you, and then select the town from the list of options which appear below.

1999 evening apparition of Venus

10 May 1999 – Venus at highest altitude in evening sky
10 Jun 1999 – Venus at dichotomy
11 Jun 1999 – Venus at greatest elongation east
17 Jul 1999 – Venus at greatest brightness

A graph of the brightness of Venus is available here.

Apparitions of Venus

20 Aug 1996 – Morning apparition
05 Nov 1997 – Evening apparition
27 Mar 1998 – Morning apparition
11 Jun 1999 – Evening apparition
30 Oct 1999 – Morning apparition
17 Jan 2001 – Evening apparition
07 Jun 2001 – Morning apparition

Observing Venus

Venus's orbit lies closer to the Sun than the Earth's, meaning that it always appears close to the Sun and is lost in the Sun's glare much of the time.

It is observable for a few months each time it reaches greatest separation from the Sun – moments referred to as greatest elongation. These apparitions repeat roughly once every 1.6 years.

On these occasions, Venus is so bright and conspicuous that it becomes the third brightest object in the sky after the Sun and Moon. It is often called the morning star or the evening star.

Venus's brightness

Venus's brightness depends on two factors: its closeness to the Earth, and its phase. Its phase varies depending on its position relative to the Earth. When it passes between the Earth and Sun, for example, the side that is turned towards the Earth is entirely unilluminated, like a new moon.

Conversely, when it lies opposite to the Earth in its orbit, passing almost behind the Sun, it appears fully illuminated, like a full moon. However, at this time it is also at its most distant from the Earth, so it is actually fainter than at other times.

Venus reaches its brightest when it is still a crescent – with less than half of its disk illuminated. This is because it is much closer to the Earth during its crescent phases than at other times.

As a result, during evening apparitions, Venus reaches maximum brightness a few days after it is at greatest separation from the Sun, which always coincides with it showing half-phase (dichotomy).

Conversely, during morning apparitions, Venus reaches maximum brightness a few days before it is at greatest separation from the Sun.

Venus's position

The coordinates of Venus when it reaches its greatest brightness will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Angular Size
Venus 10h14m30s 9°10'N Leo 38.7"
Sun 07h44m 21°15'N Gemini 31'28"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 29 Mar 2024

The sky on 29 March 2024
Sunrise
06:38
Sunset
19:14
Twilight ends
20:49
Twilight begins
05:04

19-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

81%

19 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:05 13:55 20:44
Venus 06:07 11:54 17:41
Moon 22:53 03:44 08:28
Mars 05:27 10:51 16:16
Jupiter 08:18 15:19 22:20
Saturn 05:48 11:22 16:56
All times shown in EDT.

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

11 Jun 1999  –  Venus at greatest elongation east
25 Oct 1999  –  Venus at highest altitude in morning sky
30 Oct 1999  –  Venus at greatest elongation west
17 Jan 2001  –  Venus at greatest elongation east

Image credit

© NASA/Ricardo Nunes

Share

Fairfield

Latitude:
Longitude:
Timezone:

41.14°N
73.26°W
EDT

Color scheme