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Registered Member #2099
Joined: Wed Apr 29 2009, 12:22AM
Location: Los Altos, California
Posts: 1716
The planet Venus is near its maximum brightness and angular distance from the Sun. That makes the next month a good time to see it in the daytime, if you haven't done that already.
All you need is sharp eyesight (eyeglasses are allowed) and knowing just where to look. It's sometimes easier to find it with binoculars, then walk it over to a terrestrial reference like the top of a tree or lamp-post, then look without binoculars. Be careful when walking in the street while looking at the sky.
As for the finding: one can use a compass with azimuth-altitude data available online. Or choose a day when the crescent Moon is close to the planet. Tonight I took the first step of a different method, which worked fine 10 years ago. Went out at night & found where to stand, so the bright star Procyon was lined up with the top of a tree. Tomorrow at 3:45 pm, Venus will be at that same place in the sky. Am about to repeat with Mars, which will serve as a reference for Venus tomorrow at noon.
In this chart, X is right ascension in hours, and Y is declination in degrees. Venus is shown each day at 18h UT (roughly, Venus viewing window for this example, for American continents & Europe).
Registered Member #3926
Joined: Fri Jun 03 2011, 08:32PM
Location: UK.
Posts: 525
Yes Venus is pretty bright, watching it through my 6" newt, and Jupiter near it, Jupiter is a great object for even binoculars, can see the Great red spot with 6" on 25mm plossl.
I also enjoy the M31 and M42 ^^
Electronics is more interesting for me atm so I don;t spend as much time out with the scope anymore.
Registered Member #2099
Joined: Wed Apr 29 2009, 12:22AM
Location: Los Altos, California
Posts: 1716
Oh that's cool! Unfortunately I have absolutely no idea where to look though.
You got it: that's the challenge of seeing Venus in the daytime without a telescope, binoculars, tripods, etc. The Mars method worked for me, the day after OP, but I had to get out the binoculars first to (then immediately) find Venus.
Venus these days follows the sun across the sky, about 3 hours later and maybe 15 degrees farther north. So on Wednesday at 3:00 pm, it will be to your south and high in the sky. Same place in the sky that Procyon was at 8:00 pm Tuesday night, within 1/2 degree. Go out tonight, find Procyon, find where to stand so it lines up with a treetop or a building corner. Then return 19 hours later, if the sky is clear, to see Venus there.
Seeing Venus at noon on Wednesday is a bit harder, 'cause Sun is higher & Venus lower. Mark the spot of Mars at 10:30 pm Tuesday, and look about 2.5 degrees lower.
The relative times and positions change from day to day, of course, because of what planets do. Today's prediction is based on a marvelous free planetarium program called Stellarium.
Registered Member #2099
Joined: Wed Apr 29 2009, 12:22AM
Location: Los Altos, California
Posts: 1716
Venus is still very bright & far from the Sun, as we can see any clear evening. And on Saturday, Feb. 25, the crescent Moon will pass close to Venus. If you can find the Moon in the daytime sky, it can serve as a reference point for where to find Venus. This time I took an image from Stellarium for 20h UT on Saturday. That's 3 pm in eastern USA and noon in western USA. It shows the relative distance and direction of Venus with respect to the lunar crescent, as seen from California. The image grid and orientation are equatorial.
To show the relative motions, I pasted in parts of images from 4 and 8 hours earlier: 16h UT (11 am EST, 8 am PST) and 12h UT (7 am EST, 4 am PST; this one with colors inverted).
Was briefly puzzled by the apparent non-uniform motion of the Moon. Then realized that the pictures don't show the moon at local noon for 3 equally spaced longitides. They show it at 3 equally spaced times, all as viewed from California (not from the center of the Earth). The apparent Moon is displaced by parallax in a diurnal ellipse almost 2 degrees wide. It's how the true distance and size of the Moon were known, a couple centuries before the rest of the Solar System could be measured.
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
Klugesmith: Magic mushrooms as used by ancient astronomers at Stonehenge
Do the chances of seeing Venus in the daytime depend on the altitude and latitude? Seems like the lower down and further north you are, the more atmosphere you have to look through, and the "bluer" the sky will be.
Registered Member #607
Joined: Tue Mar 27 2007, 10:39AM
Location:
Posts: 64
Another age old trick when I was a kid was to go into a dark site on a moonless, cloudless night and see if you could cast a shadow by the light of Venus at closest approach. I never saw it, but modern "techniques" might prove it can be done now. Cheers.
Registered Member #580
Joined: Mon Mar 12 2007, 03:17PM
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 410
you can also simulate it in stellarium (free) and press ctrl+f to find it (after you have set your home location), it will show you where to look in the sky
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Astronomy: observing Venus at mid-day without a telescope
