View larger. | Illustration of Venus in the daytime sky - shown over a span of some days around the time Venus will sweep near the sun in our sky at inferior conjunction on October 26, 2018. This is a tough one to see from the Northern Hemisphere! The slender sun-illuminated crescent of Venus is exaggerated 150 times in size; the dot at the center of the crescent is the planet’s actual position (and nearer to its real size). The sun is exaggerated only twice in size. You won’t see the details other than the sun and – hopefully – Venus, but they tell you the way you’re looking into the solar system and the universe. Illustration via Guy Ottewell's blog.