PENNSYLVANIA, USA — The second planet from the sun will be on full display in the evenings this week for Skywatchers. Venus will be at its brightest for the entire year this week.
It'll be low on the horizon, but it will be very bright.
Why so bright, you ask? It has to do with the orbit around the sun and our position relative to it. It might surprise you to know that Venus appears brightest to us when it's in a crescent phase—whether it's on the western side or the eastern side.
It will appear very bright this week and come up again in September. Take a look while you can while it's really bright.
That's for our evening Skywatchers; for our morning early birds, look for our waning crescent moon very close to the Pleiades star cluster. It will get closer to Aldebaran on the 14th. Aldebaran is the eye of the bull in the constellation Taurus.
So, there's something for everyone this week, whether you're and evening Skywatcher or up really early.
See past Skywatch 16 segments on YouTube: