The planet Venus is a brilliant morning star at the moment. Catch it rising in the south east ahead of the Sun between 5.30am and 7.30am.

With keen eyesight and binoculars you should be able to discern Venus’s phase, currently a beautiful crescent. A telescope will make this much clearer as demonstrated by this video footage I shot last year, when Venus was ‘the evening star’.

Over the month of November Venus will get brighter as its phase waxes from a thin crescent to a 25% illuminated disc at month end.  Despite this brightening Venus is actually travelling away from us and after December 2nd its brightness will begin to diminish as it pulls further away from earth and its disc size shrinks .

Once Venus passes behind the Sun it will eventually reappear as an evening star around mid August 2019.

Clear skies!