© NASA/Ricardo Nunes

Venus at aphelion

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Inner Planets feed

Objects: Venus
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The sky at

Venus's 225-day orbit around the Sun will carry it to its furthest point to the Sun – its aphelion – at a distance of 0.73 AU.

In practice, however, Venus's orbit is very close to circular; its distance from the Sun varies by only about 1.5% between perihelion and aphelion. This makes Venus's orbit more perfectly circular than that of any of the Solar System's other planets. As a result, its surface receives almost exactly the same amount of energy from the Sun at perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) and aphelion (furthest recess from the Sun).

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

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Angular Size
Venus 13h29m10s 13°29'S Virgo 31.7"
Sun 10h52m 7°09'N Leo 31'43"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

From Fairfield, Venus will become visible at around 19:38 (EST), 10° above your south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. It will then sink towards the horizon, setting 1 hour and 21 minutes after the Sun at 20:41.

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The sky on 4 Sep 2026

The sky on 4 September 2026
Sunrise
06:19
Sunset
19:20
Twilight ends
20:57
Twilight begins
04:42

23-day old moon
Waning Crescent

40%

23 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 06:57 13:19 19:42
Venus 10:11 15:26 20:41
Moon 22:43 06:42 14:46
Mars 01:33 09:05 16:36
Jupiter 03:59 11:04 18:10
Saturn 20:39 02:51 09:04
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

14 Aug 2026  –  Venus at greatest elongation east
11 Dec 2026  –  Venus at highest altitude in morning sky
03 Jan 2027  –  Venus at greatest elongation west
21 Mar 2028  –  Venus at greatest elongation east

Image credit

© NASA/Ricardo Nunes

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Fairfield

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41.14°N
73.26°W
EST

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