Venus brightest in the morning sky November 29

Venus brightest in the morning sky? Now’s the time

Venus is blazing in the morning sky now. You’ll see it easily in the morning before sunrise. It lives up to its reputation of outshining all other objects in our sky, except the sun and moon. UFO reports are probably increasing! But you’ll know better. It’s not a UFO in the eastern morning twilight sky. It’s Venus, the 2nd planet from the sun.

This inner world is now racing away from behind Earth, the 3rd planet, in the race of the planets around the sun. It passed between us and the sun on October 23-24, 2026.

Whenever that happens, about five weeks before (and after), Venus shines at greatest brilliancy in our sky. You’ll sometimes hear this peak in brightness in our sky called greatest illuminated extent, for reasons explained below. Venus reached its peak brilliancy in the evening sky on September 18. Then it was brighter than it’s been for all of 2026.

And now it’ll reach greatest brilliancy in the morning sky on November 29, 2026! You can’t miss it.

Afterwards, Venus won’t appear this bright to us again in the evening sky until April 2028. And the next time Venus will reach greatest brilliancy in the morning sky is July 2028.

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How bright is it?

Venus is always the 3rd brightest object in our sky, after the sun and moon. But it’s especially blazing around now.

Venus will reach its maximum brightness at 14 UTC on November 29. Then it’ll shine at magnitude -4.4. That’s much, much brighter than any star.

For the rest of us: How to see Venus in the daytime

Why does Venus look brightest now?

It’s only when we see Venus as a crescent that this world comes close enough to us to appear brightest in our sky. In other words, it only happens before and after inferior conjunction, when Venus goes between us and the sun. Again, that happened last on October 23-24, 2026.

Greatest elongation for Venus is a combination of two factors: Venus’ disk size in our sky, and its phase in our sky. Venus was at superior conjunction – on the opposite side of the sun from Earth – on January 6, 2026. At superior conjunction, when Venus is on the far side of the sun from us, it’s at full phase and its disk size is always small. It emerged in the evening twilight in March 2026. Then its disk size increased as its phase decreased and it reached its greatest brilliancy in the evening sky on September 18, 2026.

Now at greatest brilliancy in the morning sky, we’re not seeing a fully illuminated Venus. Instead, as seen through telescopes – as Venus races away from Earth – its phase has been increasing, like a waxing crescent moon. Meanwhile, again as seen through telescopes, the disk size of Venus has been decreasing as the planet races ahead of Earth in orbit around the sun.

Disk size. If you could see Venus through a telescope now, you’d find the planet as a relatively large disk (around 40 arcseconds). That’s because it’s relatively close to us now.

Phase. Venus is now in a waxing crescent phase. Its thinnest phase was when it went between us and the sun on October 23-24. Then its day side was almost entirely turned away from us. Why almost? It’s because Venus rarely goes exactly between us and the sun. Such events are called transits of Venus. The next one won’t be until December 10-11, 2117!

So greatest brilliancy for Venus is a combination of a relatively large phase and relatively large disk size.

Venus charts for 2026, from Guy Ottewell

Venus photos from our community

Bottom line: Venus will be brightest in the morning sky around November 29, 2026. After that, Venus will next be at its brightest again — this time in the evening sky — in April 2028.

Planet-observing is easy: Top tips here

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