Venus tonight

Amtmann

The brightest I've ever seen it. Anyone taking pics?

coylemj

It will continue to climb in the evening sky until greatest eastern elongation (maximum angular seperation from the sun) on March 27th and it's brightness will peak on April 30th at magnitude -4.4. Stellarium says it's -3.94 tonight. Altitude above the horizon will be maximised because greatest eastern elongation will happen close to the Spring (Vernal) Equinox when the Ecliptic describes a steep angle to the horizon at sunset so Venus will set after midnight from April 8th.

During May Venus will rapidly plunge into the evening sunset and pass between Earth and the Sun (inferior conjunction) on June 6th. Unlike most inferior conjunctions, this one will involve a transit, the second of the 2004/2012 pair. The next transit of Venus will occur in December 2117.

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/transit12.html

There will be a conjunction with Jupiter on several nights around March 13th, the Moon will pass by the pair on Feb 25/26.

Overature

i took these with a few weeks ago, took one through a binoculars. not great but best i had

MiNdGaM3

Wasn't sure what thread to use, hopefully this is ok.
Thought I'd share this with ye. It's the ISS passing between Venus on the bottom and Jupiter towards the top. Took the pictures this evening in Cork City centre. Afraid I don't have a tripod though, hence the blurriness with 1s exposures.

Flukey

They looked great last night here in Dublin. Great to see the planets like that.

Anthonyk2010

Looking west tonight i saw a very bright star is this Venus, I'm in Limerick

Overature

Anthonyk2010 wrote: »

Looking west tonight i saw a very bright star is this Venus, I'm in Limerick

dunno, venus is only visable round sun set or sun rise. could have been jupiter thats the brightest thing in the night sky

Cú Giobach

Anthonyk2010 wrote: »

Looking west tonight i saw a very bright star is this Venus, I'm in Limerick

At the time you posted Venus was just setting and Jupiter was also in the west (setting at around 12 midnight).
If you give the time you were looking and a rough idea how high above the horizon it was, someone could tell you whether it was Venus or Jupiter you saw.
At the moment the two move from SW to W from sunset till Venus sets, with Venus lower and the brighter of the two.

Anthonyk2010

Cú Giobach wrote: »

At the time you posted Venus was just setting and Jupiter was also in the west (setting at around 12 midnight).
If you give the time you were looking and a rough idea how high above the horizon it was, someone could tell you whether it was Venus or Jupiter you saw.
At the moment the two move from SW to W from sunset till Venus sets, with Venus lower and the brighter of the two.

I saw the star around 7:45pm. It was just above half in the sky, bang on west.
Noticed it was gone a few hours later.

Cú Giobach

Anthonyk2010 wrote: »

I saw the star around 7:45pm. It was just above half in the sky, bang on west.
Noticed it was gone a few hours later.

More than likely Venus, it would have been quite striking at that time.
Next clear night you get look above and to the left of Venus, you will see Jupiter shining brightly but slightly less than and with a "creamier" hue than the brilliant white Venus.

froglet

http://www.astronomy.ie/venustransit.php

whats the dealio with this morning?

endacl

froglet wrote: »

http://www.astronomy.ie/venustransit.php

whats the dealio with this morning?

Lovely views of grey clouds transiting slightly greyer clouds. Backlit by the sun, but no sun visible. Harrrummph! I should never plan these things.

I'm off to bed...