Venus is the undisputed star of the night sky this year.
Venus, now in our southwest sky for about two hours after sunset, is almost like a stellar sequestered showgirl, currently starring in her spectacular show for the night. Viewed during evening twilight, the planet appears dazzlingly bright to the naked eye and even more so in binoculars.
For those who monitor it week-to-week in a telescope, it is ever-changing and always fascinating. More on that a little later.
Connected: Venus: the second planet scorched by the Sun
summits with other worlds
A tight conjunction between Venus and the ring planet Saturn will occur on Sunday (January 22).
Then, on the evening of March 1, Venus and Jupiter will stage another celestial rendezvous, appearing only about one-half degree apart. They’ll appear side by side, with Venus shining to Jupiter’s right. At magnitude -4.0, Venus will be about six times brighter than its yellow neighbor.
Less than a week ago, a 2.5-day-old crescent Moon will form a narrow and striking isosceles triangle, with Jupiter and the Moon only 1.5 degrees apart, while Venus sits 7 degrees below the two. Here’s a challenge for amateur photographers: try to capture the two planets, the narrow sliver of the crescent Moon (just 9% illuminated by the Sun), perhaps some earthshine on its unlit side, and any residual twilight glow shading the western horizon With .
Read more: What time is the conjunction of Venus and Saturn on Sunday (January 22)?
stay up late with venus
This is going to develop into an extraordinary evening sighting for Venus. Back on January 13, the planet set about 90 minutes after sunset and — for the first time ever — in a completely dark sky just after evening twilight. Since then, those watching it night after night during the following weeks and months will notice it making an unusual trip across the dark night sky, setting about three and a half hours after the Sun by the third week of May. Is.
Many astronomy books often say that Venus typically disappears from sight by around midnight, which makes it even more difficult to believe that Venus will appear during this upcoming mid-May time frame at 11:45 p.m. Daylight saving time will remain. , This will happen after midnight for those living in Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Des Moines and Salt Lake City. In the most extreme cases, it can occur after 12:30 am on daylight saving clocks in some cities that are west of their standard time meridian, such as Boise, Bismarck, Indianapolis, and Flint.
The show continues in early summer
On May 21, look for Venus shining beneath the “twin stars” of the Gemini constellation, Castor and Pollux. Mars shines to the upper left of the Gemini twins and Venus will have a slender crescent moon to the lower right. The next night, the Moon will come closer to Venus.
On June 4, it reaches its greatest eastern elongation. It would then be at 45 degrees from the Sun, an eighth of a turn around the ecliptic. At magnitude -4.3, the planet would certainly be flashier, about twice as bright as it appears to us now.
Just after sunset on June 21 — the first day of summer — gaze west-northwest for a beautiful crescent Moon, with Venus in its lower part.
Between now and July, repeated observations of Venus with a small telescope will show the full range of its phases and disk sizes. The planet currently displays a small, bright gibbous disk (93% illuminated). By mid-spring it will be much less fuzzy.
In early June, Venus reaches bifurcation (exhibiting a “half-moon” shape). Then, for the remainder of the spring into early summer it displays an increasingly larger crescent as it swings nearer to Earth. In fact, those using binoculars will note that the apparent size of Venus’s disk will double from its current size by May 27, when the Earth-Venus distance is decreasing. The figure is easily seen even in a fixed 7-power binocular.
transition to the pre-dawn sky
Venus reaches the pinnacle of its great brightness when it is in the midst of greatest elongation and conjunction with the Sun — on July 7 — when it reaches an eye-popping magnitude of -4.7. With this burst of glory Venus will then quickly slide into the solar glare, just 2 hours after the Sun and shortly before the end of dusk this night.
By late July, however, it will have set only about 25 minutes after sunset and given up its tenure as a prominent evening object.
But the “Venus show” would not end, beginning in mid-August for a repeat display, this time in the morning sky and with the sequence of events reversed, peaking again on September 19, which was a Shining like a beacon. Morning eastern sky.
On November 9, be sure to set your alarm clock for 5 a.m. and then go outside with an unobstructed view to the east-northeast to see the most spectacular Venus/Moon pairing of 2023. Finally, on Christmas morning, they would attend morning services to see Venus shining “like a brilliant star in the east”, rising about three hours before the Sun.
It is indeed the year of Venus!
If you don’t have all the gear you need to see Venus this year, our guides on the best binoculars and best binoculars are a great place to start. If you want to take pictures of Venus or anything else in the night sky, check out our guides on the best cameras for astrophotography and the best lenses for astrophotography.
editor’s Note: If you take a great photo of Venus this year and want to share it with Space.com readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer in New York Hayden Planetarium, he writes about astronomy natural history magazineThe Farmer’s Almanac and other publications. follow us @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab)or on Facebook (opens in new tab) And instagram (opens in new tab),