© NASA/Ricardo Nunes

Venus at inferior 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 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 6° 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 0.27 AU from the Earth, making it appear with its largest angular size. If it could be observed, it would measure 61.1 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 13h43m30s 17°41'S Virgo 61.1"
Sun 13h53m 11°36'S Virgo 32'09"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 23 Oct 2026

The sky on 23 October 2026
Sunrise
07:04
Sunset
17:49
Twilight ends
19:24
Twilight begins
05:29

13-day old moon
Waxing Gibbous

96%

13 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 09:02 13:44 18:27
Venus 07:25 12:20 17:15
Moon 16:21 22:42 05:15
Mars 00:31 07:44 14:56
Jupiter 01:20 08:18 15:16
Saturn 17:05 23:13 05:21
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

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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Latitude:
Longitude:
Timezone:

42.38°N
71.11°W
EDT

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