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From: dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd)
Newsgroups: net.astro
Subject: StarDate: March 28 Goodbye Venus
Message-ID: <6@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 28-Mar-85 02:00:27 EST
Article-I.D.: utastro.6
Posted: Thu Mar 28 02:00:27 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 31-Mar-85 02:32:40 EST
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 39


If you look carefully, you may get a last glimpse of Venus after
sunset.  More -- after this.

March 28  Goodbye Venus

The planet Venus rounded the other side of the sun from our point of
view last summer -- and came out of the sun's glare in late August or
early September.  Then it was a brilliant, remote point of light,
visible low in the west after sunset.

In early fall, Venus began a slow crawl up the dome of the evening sky
-- appearing a little higher in the west with each new twilight.  By
December and January, the brightest planet was high in the west after
sunset -- all the while steadily gaining on Earth in the race around
the sun.

It reached its highest point in the west on January 21.  Then Venus
began plunging downward in our sky again -- still all the while
catching up to Earth.  It didn't take as long to fall back into the
sun's glare as it did to climb out of it.  But things are happening
faster for Venus now -- because the planet is very near Earth in space
-- on the same side of the sun -- soon to pass directly in between us
and the sun, on April 3.

Tonight you may get a last look at Venus, in a very clear western sky a
short time after sunset.  It will appear strangely bright for an object
so near the horizon.

Although Venus may still be visible under ideal conditions now, it'll
shortly disappear entirely from our evening sky -- to pass between us
and the sun -- and quickly reappear in the east before dawn before the
middle of April.


Script by Deborah Byrd.


(c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin