How can venus be seen from earth

The first is to understand what ecliptic plane is. When you trace the path of the Sun across the sky, its path is a line called the ecliptic. The ecliptic changes slightly throughout the year. It actually rises and falls. The highest point occurs at the summer solstice, while the lowest position happens six months later at winter solstice. Most celestial bodies are most easily observed during an elongation. There are two kinds of elongations.

The Eastern Elongation occurs when the planet is in the evening sky and the Western Elongation occurs when a planet is in the morning sky. So Venus itself will set in the West soon after you see it. It cannot hang around until midnight. You can get more precise angle measurements if you can use an old-school marine sextant, like captains on ships back in the day. The fist and "hang loose" gesture techniques are just approximations.

Or just get a protractor and tape two straws to it at the desired angle, and sight along the straws to estimate the angle in the sky. The superior planets Mars, Jupiter, etc are not like that. Their orbits are larger than Earth's own orbit. So they can actually be seen, once in a while, high in the sky at midnight, when the Sun is on the opposite side of Earth.

So, as you can see, the standard solar system model in astronomy is in excellent agreement with what you can see with your own eyes. There is no disagreement between observation and the model - if there was, the model would be fixed.

That's how science works. We can see Venus at night dusk and in the morning predawn , just not all night or every night. I've shamelessly borrowed this diagram from a paper to show the idea. It's discussing Mercury, but it's the same idea for Venus. We'll simplify things by using the pretty good approximation that Earth and Venus have circular orbits.

We'll also assume Earth is a perfect sphere - another good approximation. We're also assuming Earth's rotation is not at an angle to the plane of it's orbit that's the worse approximation! Finally we're going to assume the orbits are not inclined not a bad approximation, but not strictly true. The maths would get messy if we didn't do those things, so it turns out that the maths works out that the number of degrees that's the maximum the Earth can rotate through and still see Venus after the sun goes down is approximately :.

This is also discussed in this article. The technical term for these angles is elongation. As it happens this year in January we had an elongation of Venus that was almost the maximum. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. How can we see Venus at night? Asked 4 years, 3 months ago. Active 4 years, 3 months ago. It is the closest and brightest it's been since August Earlier this month it even outshone Jupiter but not by a lot. But there's a global dust storm going on at Mars, and it's not quite clear how it will affect its brightness.

You can find the Red Planet blazing a brilliant red in the southeastern sky. It will rise just after 10 p. ET in the east. It will continue to get higher in the sky, as it rises earlier. Go and take a look: it is roughly five times brighter than normal. If you're ever looking at the sky wondering what exactly it is you're seeing, there are great apps for both Androids and iPhones to help, including Sky Safari, Sky View, Star Walk and Stellarium fee. They allow you to point your phone at the sky and identify objects.

Tap and you can learn more about the object. And here's an added bonus to your planet viewing: the annual Perseid meteor shower is set to peak on Aug. With the planets, it should be quite a show. Mark your calendars! Nicole has an avid interest in all things science. As an amateur astronomer, Nicole can be found looking up at the night sky appreciating the marvels of our universe. She is the editor of the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and the author of several books.

Social Sharing. The night sky is just bursting with planets. The fun starts just after sunset. Mercury Mercury can be a challenging target. Nicole Mortillaro Senior Reporter, Science.