Aspects of Venus

The table contains special positions of Venus until 2021.

Note: Greatest brilliancy is often confused with "maximum brightness". Although they are related, they are not quite the same thing. The "greatest brilliancy" is really a geometric maximum: it occurs when the apparent area of the sunlit part of Venus is greatest. Only if the luminance of Venus' apparent surface would be constant (i.e. the same at every point and at every phase) would the "greatest brilliancy" of Venus coincide with its maximum brightness. However, the reflection of sunlight on Venus more closely follows Lambert's law, which means that the maximum brightness occurs at a somewhat larger phase of Venus than its greatest brilliancy.