© NASA/Ricardo Nunes

Venus at superior solar conjunction

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Inner Planets feed

Objects: Venus
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The sky at

Venus will pass very close to the Sun in the sky as its orbit carries it around the far side of the solar system from the Earth.

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

At closest approach, Venus will appear at a separation of only 1°03' from the Sun, making it totally unobservable for several weeks while it is lost in the Sun's glare.

Venus will also pass apogee – the time when it is most distant from the Earth – at around the same time, since it will lie exactly opposite to the Earth in the Solar System. It will move to a distance of 1.72 AU from the Earth, making it appear small and very distant. If it could be observed, it would measure 9.7 arcsec in diameter, whilst appearing completely illuminated.

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

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Angular Size
Venus 13h49m50s 10°11'S Virgo 9.7"
Sun 13h48m 11°10'S Virgo 32'08"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 22 Oct 2022

The sky on 22 October 2022
Sunrise
06:55
Sunset
18:07
Twilight ends
19:30
Twilight begins
05:33

27-day old moon
Waning Crescent

4%

27 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 06:03 11:52 17:41
Venus 06:56 12:33 18:09
Moon 04:03 10:33 16:55
Mars 21:14 04:22 11:30
Jupiter 16:46 22:45 04:44
Saturn 14:48 20:07 01:25
All times shown in PDT.

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

20 Mar 2022  –  Venus at greatest elongation west
12 May 2023  –  Venus at highest altitude in evening sky
04 Jun 2023  –  Venus at greatest elongation east
21 Oct 2023  –  Venus at highest altitude in morning sky

Image credit

© NASA/Ricardo Nunes

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