Tag: venus 2014
Posted on February 3, 2014 December 23, 2015
Watch Venus as it Wanders Through the Dawn in 2014
Are you a chronic early riser? Observational astronomy often means late nights and early mornings as daylight lengths get longer for northern hemisphere residents in February through March. But this year offers another delight for the early morning crowd, as the Venus is hanging out in the dawn skies for most of 2014.
You may have already caught sight of the brilliant world: it's hard to miss, currently shinning at a dazzling -4.5 magnitude in the dawn. Venus is the brightest planet as seen from Earth and the third brightest natural object in the night sky after the Sun and the Moon.
Venus just passed between the Earth and the Sun last month on January 11th at inferior conjunction. Passing over five degrees north of the Sun, this was a far cry from the historic 2012 transit of the solar disk, a feat that won't be replicated again until 2117 AD.
But February and March offer some notable events worth watching out for as Venus wanders in the dawn.
The path of Venus from February 4th to September 23rd, 2014. The first (top) graphic lays out the path as seen at dawn from latitude 30 degrees north, while the bottom lays out the path of Venus as seen from latitude 30 degrees south. Note that the orientation of the ecliptic in the top frame is set for September 23rd, while the bottom frame is set for February 4th, respectively. Created using Starry Night Education software.
This week sees Venus thicken as a 48" 16% illuminated waxing crescent as it continues to present more of its daytime side to the Earth. We've always thought that it was a bit of cosmic irony that the closest planet too us presents no surface detail to observers: Venus is a cosmic tease. This assured that astronomers knew almost nothing about Venus until the dawn of the Space Age — guesses at its rotational speed and surface conditions were all widely speculative. Ideas of a vast extraterrestrial jungle or surface-spanning seas of seltzer water oceans gave way to the reality of a shrouded hellish inferno with noontime temps approaching 460 degrees Celsius. Venus is also bizarre in the fact that it rotates once every 243 Earth days, which is longer than its 224.7 day year — you could easily out walk a Venusian sunrise, that is if you could somehow survive to see it from its perpetually clouded surface!
Venus also passes 4.3 degrees from faint Pluto this week on February 5th. And while Pluto is a tough catch at over a million times fainter than Venus, it's interesting to consider that NASA's New Horizons and ESA's Rosetta spacecraft are also currently off in the same general direction:
Venus and the invisible lineup of deep space missions in the same general direction this week. Also note that Venus has been skirting the non-zodiacal constellation of Scutum this season! Created using Starry Night Education Software.
Venus also reaches greatest brilliancy at magnitude -4.6 next week on February 11th. Venus is bright enough to cast a shadow onto a high contrast background, such as freshly fallen snow. Can you see your "Venusian shadow" with the naked eye? How about photographically?
Venus then goes on to show its greatest illuminated extent to us on February 15th. This combination occurs because although the crescent of Venus is fattening, the apparent size of the disk is shrinking as the planet pulls away from us in its speedy interior orbit. Can you spy the elusive "ashen light of Venus" through a telescope? Long a controversy, this has been reported by observers as a dim "glow" on the nighttime hemisphere of Venus. Proposed explanations for the ashen light of Venus over the years have been airglow, aurorae, lightning, Venusian land clearing activity (!) or, more likely, an optical illusion.
And speaking of which, the crescent Venus gets occulted by the waning crescent Moon on February 26th. Observers in western Africa will see this occur in the predawn skies, and the rest of us will see a close pass of the pair worldwide. Can you spot Venus near the crescent Moon in the daytime sky on the 26th?
The Moon and Venus at dawn on February 25th for observers along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard. Created using Stellarium.
In March, Venus begins the slide southward towards the point occupied by the Sun months earlier and heads towards its greatest westward elongation for 2014 on March 22nd at 46.6 degrees west of the Sun. Interestingly, Venus is tracing out roughly the same track it took 8 years ago in 2006 and will trace again in 2022, when it will also spend a majority of the year in the dawn once again. The 8-year repeating cycle of Venus is a result of the planet completing very nearly 13 orbits of the Sun to our 8. Ancient cultures, including the Maya, Egyptians, and Babylonian astronomers all knew of this period.
Through the telescope, Venus appears at a tiny "half-moon" phase 50% illuminated at greatest elongation, a point known as dichotomy. It's interesting to note that theoretical and observed dichotomy can actually vary by several days surrounding greatest elongation. An optical phenomenon, or a true observational occurrence? When do you judge that dichotomy occurs in 2014?
In April, one of the closest planetary conjunctions occurs of 2014 on the 12th involving Neptune and Venus at just 40' apart, a little over the span of a Full Moon. Can you squeeze both into an eyepiece field of view? At +7.7th magnitude, Neptune shines at over 25,000 times fainter than Venus. Neith, the spurious "moon" of Venus described by 18th century astronomers lives!
But two even more dramatic conjunctions occur late in the summer, when Jupiter passes just 15' from Venus on August 18th and Regulus stands just 42' from Venus on September 5th. Fun fact: Venus actually occulted Regulus last century on July 7th, 1959!
From there on out, Venus heads toward superior conjunction on the far side of the Sun on October 25th, to once again emerge into the dusk sky through late 2014 and 2015.
Be sure to check out these dawn exploits of Venus through this Spring season and beyond!
An Incredible Time-lapse of Venus Passing Through Inferior Conjunction
Some of the most amazing celestial sights are hidden from our view in the daytime sky. Or are they? We recently challenged readers to try and follow the planet Venus through inferior conjunction as it passed between the Earth and the Sun on January 11th. Unlike the previous pass on June 6th, 2012 when Venus made its last transit of the Sun for the 21st century, the 2014 solar conjunction offered an outstanding chance to trace Venus's path just five degrees from the Sun from the dusk and into the dawn sky.
Expert astrophotographers Shahrin Ahmad based in Sri Damansara, Malaysia and Paul Stewart observing from New Zealand took up that daily challenge as Venus neared the limb of the Sun, with amazing results. Now, Shahrin has also produced an amazing time-lapse sequence of Venus passing through inferior conjunction.
You can actually see the illuminated "horns" of Venus as they thin, extend, and rotate around the limb as the planet passes the Sun.
And it's what's more incredible is that the capture was completed in the daytime. But such a feat isn't for the unskilled. Shahrin told Universe Today of the special safety precautions he had to take to acquire Venus so close to the Sun:
"Since Venus was getting closer each day towards conjunction, I found it far too dangerous to find visually, either using the main telescope or the finderscope."
Instead, Shahrin relies on computerized software named Cartes du Ciel to drive his Skywatcher EQ6 mount and pinpoint Venus in the daytime sky.
"The sky in Kuala Lumpur is never clear from here, thus it rarely appears dark blue, making it almost impossible to spot Venus visually, especially when it is less than 10 degrees from the Sun."
Shahrin elaborated further on his special solar safety precautions:
"I always start with all covers in place and the solar filter on the main telescope. I will slew the telescope to the Sun, make some slight repositioning adjustments, and then synchronize the telescope to the new position. After ensuring the Sun is visible and centered on the computer screen, I slew to Venus. Once the mount has stopped in position, I remove the solar filter and replace it with a makeshift cardboard extender mounted on the existing dew-shield. This ensures that any direct sunlight is totally blocked from entering the optics."
Shahrin notes that 90% of the time, Venus with appear on the computer screen after aligning. Otherwise, a brief spiral search of the field will slide it into view.
Shahrin observes from his ShahGazer Observatory, a roll-off-roof observatory just outside of Kuala Lumpur. He used the Skywatcher 120ED refractor pictured for the captures, with a 2x Barlow lens to achieve a focal length of 1800mm. Shahrin's main camera is a QHY CCD IMG132e, and the rig is mounted on a Skywatcher EQ6.
A closeup of Sharin's barlow and camera rig. Credit: Shahrin Ahmad.
"The experience of being able to track Venus approaching inferior conjunction over the Sun afterwards is exhilarating," Shahrin told Universe Today. "It felt like watching and waiting for a total eclipse of the Sun, but in slow motion!"
Shahrin also counts himself lucky to have had a string of clear days leading up to and after inferior conjunction.
Shahrin's capture of Venus 5 degrees from the Sun just 8 hours before inferior conjunction may also be a record. That's a closer apparent separation than our visual sighting of Venus 7 hours and 45 minutes after inferior conjunction on January 16th 1998 as seen from North Pole Alaska, when the planet passed 5.5 degrees from the limb of the Sun.
"I've also noticed that in some of the photos, we can see a slight 'glint' of sunshine on part of Venus' atmosphere," Shahrin noted to Universe Today. "(This sighting) was actually confirmed by the RASC Edmonton Centre in Canada via their Twitter feed."
An amazing capture, indeed. Venus is now back in the realm of visibility for us mere mortal backyard observers low in the dawn sky, shining at a brilliant magnitude -4.3. Expect it to vault up in a hurry for northern hemisphere observers as the favorable angle of the ecliptic will give it a boost in the dawn. Venus is also headed towards a spectacular 0.2 degree conjunction with Jupiter this summer on August 18th: expect UFO sightings to rise correspondingly. The Indian Army even briefly mistook the pair for Chinese spy drones early last year.
The waning crescent Moon approaches Venus on the morning of January 28th, 2014. Created using Stellarium.
Venus will spend most of 2014 in the dawn sky and is headed for superior conjunction on October 25th, 2014. Venus spent a similar span in the dawn for the majority 2006, and will do so again in 2022. It's all part of the 8-year cycle of Venus, a span over which apparitions of the planet roughly repeat. And the next shot we'll have at inferior conjunction? That'll be on August 15th, 2015 for favoring the southern hemisphere and March 25th, 2017 once again favoring the northern, when the planet very nearly passes as far from the Sun as it can appear at inferior conjunction at 8 degrees.
Congrats to Shahrin on his amazing capture!
-Follow the stargazing adventures of Sharin Ahmad on Google+ and as @shahgazer on Twitter
-Got pictures of Venus? Send 'em in to Universe Today.