VENUS'S GREATEST ELONGATION OF 2021

Wide FOV Image Credits: NASA/JPL Solar System Simulator developed by: David Seal

L O A D I N G 

As an Inferior Planet, one whose orbit is smaller than Earth's, Venus can never move completely around our home planet!  This means that Venus—the major planet whose orbit is closest in size to Earth's—repeats a cycle through our skies that makes it "appear" to  zig-zag  back and forth past the Sun!  Current Venus.

         

The farthest eastern and western angular distances that Venus achieves from the Sun are called its Greatest Elon- gations, and  in a single year either zero, one or two Greatest Elongations are possible for Venus, but no more.  Click on the labels above to view Venus's only Greatest Elongation of 2021, which this year is an "eastern" one, i.e. it occurs east of the Sun.  View it with or without orbits, and zoom in to see how Venus will appear "close-up" at this time.  If you are observing Venus on this date, also check out its  Current Location in the Constellations  and  Current Location in Orbit, and compare these to what you see in the above views.  And you can find Venus's Greatest Elongations hundreds of years in the past and future with this  Venus Elongation Explorer!

Venus is much easier to observe than Mercury.  This is because—compared to Mercury's orbit—Venus's orbit is farther from the Sun and closer to Earth's orbit.  Therefore, when it is at a Greatest Elongation, Venus can appear over 47° from the Sun!  This is 1/8 (one-eighth) of the way around the sky from it!  When Venus is east of the Sun it is seen as an "evening star", visible before and after sunset.  When it is west of the Sun it is seen as an "morning star", visible before and after sunrise.  Moreover, because Venus is so bright, at times it can be seen in what would be considered "broad daylight".  It is generally easiest to take advantage of this fact when Venus is near or at its Greatest Elongations, as then it is farthest from the brilliance of the Sun.  Even so, not many persons have ever seen Venus during the day; so if you do, you're one of the privileged few!

You can gain further insight about Inner Planet elongations with this  Configurations Simulator  and this  Planetary Phases Simulator.  In both simulators' Orbit Sizes boxes, select Earth as "observer" and Venus as "target".

And while you're at it checking out Venus's Elongations, don't forget that you can also find when viewing the "other" Inferior Planet is optimum.  Check out  Mercury's Greatest Elongations of 2021.

Simulator Image Notes:  1) Fields of View are measured horizontally.  2) Eclipse shadows of planetary moons are not displayed.  3) Light-Travel Time is not included in calculated times.   4) Planet of focus (at center of simulator image) is viewed with its local north "upward", i.e. in the 12:00 midnight direction.  5) Simulator expresses the phase (where applicable) as the absolute value of the phase angle.

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