Venus, the most dazzling planet in the night sky, will be shining at its brightest tonight (April 28).
The “night star,” which is currently the second-brightest item in the night sky (2nd just to the moon), is now shining at magnitude -4.7, or nearly three times brighter than it was at its faintest in late 2019. (Magnitude is a logarithmic scale of brightness utilized by astronomers, with lower numbers representing brighter items and negative numbers suggesting exceptionally intense items.)
Venus is now so intense that keen-eyed observers might be able to identify it in broad daylight, although the planet is finest viewed after sundown. Try to find the planet above the west-southwest horizon as the skies start to darken this evening. It will be in the Taurus constellation near Elnath, the second-brightest star in Taurus that represents the suggestion of the right “horn” of the bull.
For skywatchers in New york city City, Venus rises by 6 a.m. and sets at 11:24 p.m. local time, which is about 3.5 hours after sundown. The”evening star”will be noticeable after sunset regardless of your area, but you can discover precisely what time the sun, moon and planets rise and set from any
location utilizing his helpful night sky calculator at timeanddate.com. Venus will continue to reign in the night sky till June 3, when the planet reaches inferior solar conjunction, or the point in its orbit where it is almost straight in between Earth and the sun. At this time, Venus will be challenging to see, due to the fact that it rises and sets at the very same time as the sun and will be subdued by the sun’s powerful glare. In the days following inferior conjunction, Venus will come back in the dawn sky as a”early morning star.”The planet will reach the best brightness of its morning phantom on July 10, when it will once again shine at a stunning magnitude of -4.7.
Venus reached its “biggest lit up degree”– when the brightened part of the world’s surface area covers the biggest piece of our night sky– on Monday (April 27) at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT on April 28), according to the skywatching website EarthSky.org.Perhaps surprisingly,
Venus is just about 25% illuminated by sunlight at this time, and the world appears as a thin crescent in small telescopes and high-power field glasses. And despite the reality that its Earth-facing side is practically completely dark, Venus now appears nearly 40% larger in size than it did simply one month ago.Venus ‘crescent will continue to grow thinner as the planet approaches inferior solar combination in early June. Once it comes back from the sun’s glare a few days later on, it will stay in the dawn sky as a”early morning star “for the remainder of the year. Editor’s note: If you snap an incredible night sky
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