Venus, which stays in our southwest sky for about two hours after sunset, is like a star-adorned dancer that takes on its shining role every night. Observed at evening twilight, this planet appears dazzlingly bright when viewed with the naked eye or even with binoculars. It is constantly changing and always fascinating for those who observe it with a telescope every week. About that later.

Meetings with other worlds at the highest level

On Sunday, January 22, there will be a very tight conjunction between Venus and the ringed planet Saturn. Then, on the evening of March 1, Venus and Jupiter will make another celestial meeting, appearing only about half a degree away. They will appear side by side and Venus will shine to the right of Jupiter. At magnitude -4.0, Venus would be about six times brighter than its yellow neighbor.

Less than a week ago, the 2.5-day crescent will form a narrow and impressive isosceles triangle, Jupiter and the Moon will be only 1.5 degrees apart, and Venus will both be 7 degrees below. Here’s a challenge for amateur photographers: try to photograph two planets, a narrow strip of crescent moon (only 9% illuminated by the sun), perhaps a bit of terrestrial aurora on the unlit side, and silhouettes of what’s left of the twilight glow. against the western horizon.

This will turn into an extraordinary evening phenomenon of Venus. On January 13, the planet sank about 90 minutes after sunset and – for the first time – just after evening twilight in a completely dark sky. From then on, night watchers over the coming weeks and months will notice it makes an unusual trip into the deep night sky, setting about 3 1/2 hours after the sun in the third week of May.

Many astronomy textbooks state that Venus usually disappears for a long time until midnight, making it hard to believe that Venus will remain dormant until 11:45 PM DST next mid-May. . For those living in Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Des Moines, and Salt Lake City, this will be after midnight. In extreme cases, it can be after 12:30 PM DST in some cities far west of the standard time meridians, such as Boise, Bismarck, Indianapolis, and Flint.

The show will continue until the beginning of summer.

On May 21, watch Venus shine under the “twin stars” of the constellation Gemini, Castor and Pollux. Mars shines on the upper left of Gemini and Venus will have a thin crescent to the lower right. The next night, the Moon will come even closer to Venus.

It reaches its greatest eastern extension on June 4. It will then be 45 degrees from the sun, one eighth of the way around the ecliptic. The 4.3-magnitude planet will certainly be attractive, almost twice as bright as it appears to us now.

Just after sunset on June 21, the first day of summer, look west-northwest to see a beautiful crescent accompanied by Venus in the lower left. Want to take a closer look at Venus? We recommend the Celestron Astro Fi 102 as the top pick in our best beginner’s guide to telescopes.

By July, repeated observations of Venus using a small telescope will show all its phases and disk sizes. Currently, the planet shows a small, dazzling hybrid disk (93% illumination). In mid-spring, it will become noticeably smaller.

At the beginning of June, Venus reaches duality (showing a “crescent” shape). Then, during the rest of spring and early summer, it shows a growing crescent as it orbits Earth. Indeed, telescope users will notice that as the Earth-Venus distance decreases, the apparent size of the Venusian disk will increase and double its current size by May 27. When it doubles again on July 16, the large crescent shape should be easily visible even with the fixed 7x binoculars.