Quickly, the sky’s most glamorous night performer will take its go away.
Since late March, Venus has been the unmistakable “Night Star,” gleaming shortly after sundown and stealing consideration from practically all the things else within the twilight. In June, it helped stage a hanging three-planet lineup after sunset, outshining each Jupiter and Mercury.
Now the curtain is starting to fall: Venus is sinking evening by evening and can commerce its night position for a morning one earlier than October is over.
A well-recognized dance across the solar
Venus strikes to a remarkably common beat. Our nearest planetary neighbor circles the sun in an almost perfect path, completing 13 orbits in 8 Earth years. From Earth, that rhythm makes Venus appear to trace five great loops across the sky in the same span. It is a long cycle noticed by skywatchers — and important to the ancient Aztec and Mayan civilizations — and it offers every Venus 12 months its personal recognizable persona. In 2026, the sample carefully echoes 2018, differing by solely about two days.
Key dates this month
Venus is about to blaze at peak brilliance, however this farewell efficiency comes with a problem. All month lengthy, the planet will slide decrease within the southwest after sundown, shortening the window for a great view. If the horizon is obvious and the climate cooperates, these are the evenings to circle in your skywatching calendar.
- Sept. 7: On Labor Day, Venus units about 1¼ hours after sundown.
- Sept. 14: Look low within the west-southwest 30 to 45 minutes after sundown, when a waxing crescent moon seems round 5½ levels to the left of Venus.
- Sept. 18: Venus reaches greatest brilliancy, shining at a dazzling magnitude of
-4.8 near the horizon. - Late September: The planet slips quickly from view, setting just 35 minutes after sundown by month’s end.
Why this farewell is so low-key
Ordinarily, the weeks between greatest elongation and greatest brilliancy are prime time for Venus watchers. Not this year. For evening observers, this apparition has been more frustrating than triumphant, with Venus lingering low in the glow of twilight instead of climbing into a commanding position.
The best views came back in June, when Venus lingered until around 11 p.m. Since then, it has been ducking out earlier each night. By Aug. 15, the evening of greatest elongation — when Venus reached its greatest apparent distance east of the sun — it was already setting just as evening twilight faded.
For observers at mid-northern latitudes, the finale is especially low to the horizon. Around 40 degrees north latitude, Venus will stand only about 5½ degrees above the southwest horizon at sunset by the end of September. That is barely more than half the width of your clenched fist held at arm’s length — a beautiful but fleeting target in the fading light.
A crescent world in the twilight
Through a telescope, Venus now shows one of its most striking faces: a narrowing crescent. As its sunlit side turns farther away from Earth, that crescent grows thinner and longer, becoming a delicate arc of brilliant light. With very steady binoculars, you may even glimpse the shape during the next couple of weeks, though the planet’s low altitude will make the view shimmer and blur.
The morning star returns
By the end of the first week of October, Venus will have slipped from the evening sky altogether. It reaches inferior conjunction on Oct. 24, passing about 6 degrees south of the sun. Around that time, spotting it on nearby evenings or mornings will be extremely difficult.
But Venus never stays away for long. In November, it reappears before dawn, opening a brilliant new morning apparition. By the winter holidays, it will shine high in the eastern sky as a fitting “Christmas Star,” rising more than two hours before daybreak — and nearly four hours before the sun.
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, Sky and Telescope, The Old Farmer’s Almanac and different publications.