Sunday, April 27, 2025

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, 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 (or 4 degrees to the celestial south) of Saturn. Venus will appear nearly as bright on the surrounding mornings. New Moon

The moon will reach its new phase on Sunday, April 27 at 3:31 p.m. EDT or
12:31 p.m. PDT or 19:31 UT. At that time our natural satellite will be located in Aries and 3.25 degrees north of the sun. While new, the moon is travelling between Earth and the sun. Since sunlight can only reach the far side of the moon, and the moon is in the same region of the sky as the sun, the moon becomes unobservable from anywhere on Earth for about a day (except during a solar eclipse). On the evenings following the new moon phase, Earth's
planetary partner will return to shine in the western sky after sunset.

(Data Courtesy of Starry Night)
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