On Tuesday May 9, Venus will be northernmost in its journey around the sky.
See the end note about enlarging illustrations.
The planet’s declination is at a maximum of 26.08° on May 9 at 22 hours by Universal Time. You can see that it has passed above the “solstice point” – the northernmost point of the ecliptic, where the Sun will appear on June 21.
Venus’s arc over the northern ecliptic varies each year, descending on the time since it passed its ascending node across the ecliptic plane. The section on “Northness and southness” on page 38 of our book about Venus goes into this. As shown by the chart there, this is one of the extreme years, but not as extreme as in a year like 2020.
At the time and location of our sky scene, Venus is 18° above the horizon. It will set almost 4 hours after the Sun. As it moves lower, the sky gets darker, and with binoculars you may be able to perceive just south of it a blur that is the great star cluster Messier 35.
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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor. One way: right-click, and choose “View image” or “Open image in new tab”, then enlarge. Or choose “Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
This is a glorious apparition of Venus, for those of us in the northern hemisphere. And her morning apparition after inferior conjunction in August will also be wonderful. Luck follows luck, an evening apparition in the Spring and a morning apparition in the Fall.
I seem to recall an article (not by you) that discussed someone reported being able to see Venus as an evening star and a morning star on the same day. From your diagram above I would expect that opportunity would repeat on the Venus 8 year cycle (i.e. 2020 & 2028). I would also think this opportunity would be more likely from a more Northern latitude when the maximum “northness” occurs around the winter solstice (wouldn’t think it possible with the midnight sun but what do I know). Do you think it is possible to see Venus in the evening and morning on the same day and, if so, when/where will I have my next opportunity?
Yes, this is mentioned in the “Seeing Venus close to inferior conjunction” section of the book, with some illustrations.