Venus Will Be the Brightest It’ll Be All Year on April 27

Yes but the RV campgrounds there don’t have hook ups.

It’s been exceptionally bright to the west for the last couple months

Well, in all the time I’ve lived here on the East Coast in NJ that’s how the Old Girl has been showing herself. Regards.

Probably get to see some sea turtles too!!

I remember taking video of that event. I have a 14 1/2 inch F 5.5 Newtonian though for that video I was only using the telescope as a drive. I used the finder scope as a projector into large cardboard box that I mounted on the telescope tube and projected an image inside. I placed a video camera inside the box to record the projection.

Well, in all the time I’ve lived here on the East Coast in NJ that’s how the Old Girl has been showing herself. Regards.

"The synodic period is the time Venus takes to be seen again from the Earth in the same position with respect to the Sun (but not necessarily to the stars). It is 584 days long [...] or just over 19 months."

- European Southern Observatory

"...same position with respect to the Sun..." means roughly "in the same phase (crescent, "full," etc.)" and "in the same place in the sky at a specified clock-time."

Since 12 months (= one Earth year) does not "go evenly" into 19 months, Venus would not be seen (from Earth) to have the same phase and position in the sky relative to the Sun in the same month (or even season) in consecutive Earth years.

Q.E.D.

Regards,

Clever. Btw, why did you not use the Newtonian for the video? Was it lack of a solar filter?

So this holds true for the Northern Hemisphere of the US, southern NJ on the East Coast?

.25 to .5. Fired up my Orion SpaceProbe 130ST last night. Almost as bright or as bright as the moon only smaller. Was somewhat surprised that it was so visible here in Wichita city limits.

Will be near the moon tonight.

So this holds true for the Northern Hemisphere of the US, southern NJ on the East Coast?

What I wrote holds true for anywhere on the surface of the planet Earth. Even holds true for Venus as viewed not only from Earth, but also as viewe drom the Earth's Moon (i.e., it is true that the synodic period of Venus - 19 months - determines how Venus looks and where it can be found in the sky).

Regards,

Well, as I said. I’ve always seen Venus setting at this time of year , just as it’s doing now and rising in the east in winter at dawn , never the reverse. Regards.

Almost as bright or as bright as the moon only smaller.

The brightest astronomical objects have negative apparent magnitudes: for example, Venus at −4.2 or Sirius at −1.46. [...] and the mean magnitude of the full moon is −12.74.

-12.74 minus -4.2 = 8.54 magnitudes.

The magnitude scale is logarithmic. One difference in magnitude is equivalent to a 2.5-fold difference in brightness.

The 8.54-fold greater magnitude of the Moon is thus equivalent to being 2.5 to the 8.54-power times brighter than Venus at its brightest.

That's roughly 2,000 times brighter!

Regards,

I don’t have a solar filter for the big scope. I bungeed a towel over the main aperture, And did some surgery on a large cardboard box so that it would fit snug up against the tube. I put a hole through the end of the box where the finder scope poked through and projected onto a white sheet of paper on the back of the box. The movie camera went inside of the box filming the projection on the white sheet of paper. I have always been a bubble gum and guy wire kind of astronomer. :-)

Well we got to Melbourne anyway. Did get to take a peek! First really clear night we’ve had down here in a while.

Would have liked to see it without the Moon to look for Venus shadows

The rest of the Venus keyword, chrono sorted, some editing: