Venus: Here She comes!

Venus is closing in on the Earth quickly for its October 26 inferior conjunction with the Sun. It is at this time it will be closest to the Earth at roughly 25 million miles. To put that distance in perspective, the closest Mars came to the Earth this year was 35 million miles. As Venus gets closer to the date of conjunction we see more and more of the nighttime side at the same time the planet gets larger and larger from Earth’s viewpoint. Hopefully, the weather will provide some clear views of it when it presents a very thin crescent.

Originally, the image was thought to have been taken through the UV filter. Due to operator error it was taken through the blue filter which is why there is no apparent detail of the planet’s cloud tops. This image was taken at 2:36 in the afternoon of 8 Sep. North is up.