Home > Astronomical Event, Ephemeris Program, Venus > Ephemeris: 08/17/2026 – Venus has reached its greatest separation from the Sun in the evening sky

Ephemeris: 08/17/2026 – Venus has reached its greatest separation from the Sun in the evening sky

August 17, 2026 Leave a comment Go to comments

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Monday, August 17th. Today the Sun will be up for 13 hours and 57 minutes, setting at 8:45, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:48. The Moon, 2 days before first quarter, will set at 10:41 this evening.

Last Saturday morning Venus reached its greatest separation from the sun in the evening sky, called the greatest eastern elongation of about 46° angle from the sun . From now until late October it will be slowly then more than more rapidly move back towards the sun, as in actuality, it moves around in its orbit of the sun towards the earth to pass between the earth and the sun October 23rd. During this period of time Venus will show a crescent phase in telescopes, becoming thinner and thinner as the days progress and also larger as it moves towards the earth. Today it’s 62.4 million miles (or 100.5 mkm) away dropping to 25.4 million miles (40.8 mkm) at its closest on October 24th.

The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.

Addendum

Venus cycle as seen from the earth.
Venus cycle as seen from the earth. It’s called the synodic period. As can be seen by the dates, the next greatest eastern elongation is near the spring equinox. Then, Venus will appear much higher when spotted in the evening twilight, since Venus’ orbit will appear more steeply inclined to the western horizon.

Categories: Astronomical Event, Ephemeris Program, Venus Tags:
  1. No comments yet.
  1. No trackbacks yet.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.