The Phases of Venus
Image Credit &
License:
Stéphane Gonzales
Venus goes through
phases.
Just like our Moon,
Venus
can appear as a full circular disk, a thin
crescent, or anything in between.
Venus, frequently the brightest object in the
post-sunset or
pre-sunrise sky, appears so small,
however, that it usually requires binoculars or a small telescope to clearly see its current phase.
The featured time-lapse sequence was taken over the course of six months in 2015 from Surgères,
Charente-Maritime,
France,
and shows not only how Venus changes phase, but changes angular size as well.
When
Venus is on the far side of the Sun from the Earth,
it appears angularly smallest and nearest to full phase, while when
Venus and Earth are on the same side of the Sun,
Venus appears larger, but as a crescent.
This month Venus rises before dawn in
waxing
gibbous
phases.