Venus at Greatest Illuminated Extent (pre-dawn)

On Sunday, April 27, Venus will reach its greatest illuminated extent for the current morning apparition. In a telescope (inset), the planet will show a surprisingly slender, 26%-illuminated, waxing crescent phase on a large apparent disk size of 39 arc-seconds. Even with a less than fully-illuminated disk, Venus’ distance from Earth of only 0.432 Astronomical Units (40.12 million miles or 64.57 million km) will boost its brightness to a brilliant magnitude -4.75. After rising at about 4:20 a.m. local time, Venus will be visible in the eastern pre-dawn sky below the western fish in Pisces and a few finger widths to the upper left of Saturn. Venus will appear nearly as bright on the surrounding mornings.