Planet guides (like ours) will tell you that the brightest planet Venus is not visible in September 2019. That’s because Venus reached superior conjunction on August 14. At that time, Venus was behind the sun as viewed from Earth. Now Venus is still mostly lost in the sun’s glare, but it has officially transitioned from our morning sky, where it lingered for most of 2019, to our evening sky. And behold! An EarthSky community member has glimpsed Venus already through a telescope. Radu Anghel of Bacau, Romania, wrote on September 6, 2019:
Venus, the Evening Star, at 5 degrees away from the sun. Visible only with the telescope for now, but will get farther from the sun and shine in the next weeks, in the west after sunset. One shot, ISO 100, 1/200s.
By the way, Venus comes to superior conjunction every 584 days. Southern Hemisphere observers might catch Venus with the eye alone by the end of September. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the autumn angle of the ecliptic to the western horizon in the evening will place Venus lower in the sky, closer to the sunset horizon. We in the north might have to wait until October to see Venus with the eye alone.
Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Prior to that, she had worked for the University of Texas McDonald Observatory since 1976, and created and produced their Star Date radio series. Today, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this website. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. In 2020, she won the Education Prize from the American Astronomical Society, the largest organization of professional astronomers in North America. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. "Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers," she says.
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