See Goddess of Love in Valentines Daylight
Share with your Valentine a beautiful sight in early February as the Goddess of Love, as Venus is known, dazzles in the evening sky. Better yet, Venus may be visible to the naked eye in the daytime sky if you know where to look. Details about this 2025 apparition are at EarthSky.
The planet's greatest eastern elongation is when Venus appears furthest east from the setting sun. In 2025, that extreme occurs on January 10. As noted in an earlier EarthSky article, Venus is at its brightest about a month after greatest eastern elongation for the evening sky and a month before greatest western elongation in the morning sky.
Hence, Venus shines brightest around Valentines Day, when its magnitude is -4.6. Wow, that's stunningly bright!
Here's how the sky looked on January 31, 2025, at sunset from southern Florida. Venus is about 45 degrees above the sun. By Valentines Day, Venus will appear slightly closer to the sun, about 40 degrees away.
So how do you see it by day? Against the blue background, Venus is easier to find when the moon is nearby, and the waxing crescent moon obliges on the first day in February, 2025, when the crescent moon has moved further up and the waxing moon is immediately next to Venus. A sliver of a moon is near Venus on the first and second days of March, too.
However, Venus is so crazy bright that you can estimate 40 degrees from the sun and just scan that area along the ecliptic with your eyes. Midday may admittedly be overwhelmingly bright, but when I remembered to look on January 31 at 4:45 p.m., it only took me a couple of minutes to dial in what appeared to be a tiny star against a blue sky. I couldn't photograph it then, but I could see it naked eye.
Another means to find the approximate location of Venus is to use an app. I like SkyView®, Explore the Universe, for it depicts the stars and planets and grid lines while allowing the background view to show.
If you zoomed in on Venus with a telescope you'd discover that it, too, appears as a crescent shape. That Venus has phases is one of Galileo's great discoveries, for the only way a solar body can have phases is if it passes between the earth and the sun. The moon and the inner planets qualify, further supporting the heliocentric model of the solar system.
Few people have seen Venus in the daytime sky, a notable exception being during a transit of Venus, when Venus passes in front of the sun. That next easy opportunity, however, won't happen again until December 2117.
Abraham Lincoln apparently witnessed Venus in the midday sky as he rode his carriage during his second inauguration in 1865.
Don't wait for Valentines Day to look for the Goddess of Love. Rather, seek it out every clear day in early February to build your confidence. Then share the love on February 14.
Image added Feb. 1, 2025:
Comments