© NASA/Ricardo Nunes

Venus at dichotomy

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Inner Planets feed

Objects: Venus
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Venus will reach half phase in its 2177 morning apparition. It will be shining brightly at mag -4.3.

From Cambridge , this apparition will not be one of the most prominent but , reaching a peak altitude of 23° above the horizon at sunrise on 17 Jul 2177.

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2177 morning apparition of Venus

05 Feb 2177 – Venus at inferior solar conjunction
09 Mar 2177 – Venus at greatest brightness
17 Apr 2177 – Venus at greatest elongation west
18 Apr 2177 – Venus at dichotomy
17 Jul 2177 – Venus at highest altitude in morning sky
19 Nov 2177 – Venus at superior solar conjunction

A graph of the phase of Venus is available here.

Apparitions of Venus

21 Apr 2175 – Evening apparition
10 Sep 2175 – Morning apparition
26 Nov 2176 – Evening apparition
17 Apr 2177 – Morning apparition
01 Jul 2178 – Evening apparition
19 Nov 2178 – Morning apparition
07 Feb 2180 – Evening 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 phase

Venus's 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 shows an intermediate half phase – called dichotomy – at roughly the same moment that it appears furthest from the Sun, at greatest elongation. The exact times of the two events may differ by a few days, only because Venus's orbit is not quite perfectly aligned with the ecliptic.

Venus's position

The coordinates of Venus when it reaches dichotomy will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Angular Size
Venus 22h45m10s 7°30'S Aquarius 24.1"
Sun 01h37m 10°07'N Pisces 31'52"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 28 Apr 2024

The sky on 28 April 2024
Sunrise
05:40
Sunset
19:40
Twilight ends
21:29
Twilight begins
03:52

20-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

74%

20 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 04:58 11:18 17:37
Venus 05:24 12:04 18:43
Moon 00:00 04:11 08:22
Mars 04:15 10:11 16:07
Jupiter 06:28 13:39 20:51
Saturn 03:50 09:27 15:04
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

17 Apr 2177  –  Venus at greatest elongation west
17 Jul 2177  –  Venus at highest altitude in morning sky
20 May 2178  –  Venus at highest altitude in evening sky
01 Jul 2178  –  Venus at greatest elongation east

Image credit

© NASA/Ricardo Nunes

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Cambridge

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42.38°N
71.11°W
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