Venus notes from Robert Victor:

On April 22, Venus reaches greatest brilliancy, while showing a 22-percent crescent, 42 arcseconds across, 36 degrees from Sun. April 2025 is a very great month for students to get telescopic views of Venus in the daytime, as the first activity of the school day, or on the playground, before first bell.

On May 8, Venus will appear as a crescent 35 percent illuminated, 33 arcseconds across, and 43 degrees upper right of the rising Sun.

On June 1, Venus will reach greatest elongation, 45.9 degrees west (upper right) of rising Sun, and will display a half- illuminated disk (phase 50 percent), 24 arcseconds in apparent diameter. Venus will display increasing gibbous phases over the next several months, and will reach superior conjunction on Jan 6, 2026, showing a full disk (100 percent illuminated) and only 10 arcseconds in apparent diameter, only one-sixth of its apparent diameter at inferior conjunction on March 22, 2025.

Modeling Venus’s phases: The Ptolemaic model, with the epicycles of Venus and Mercury both completely within the circle of the Sun’s path around Earth, does NOT explain the phenomena of Venus’ phases as observed by Galileo. The Ptolemaic model predicts Venus would be completely dark or at most a very thin crescent at BOTH the nearer and more distant conjunctions with the Sun. Venus would never appear in other than crescent phases thoughout its 19-month cycle as morning and evening “star”.

On the other hand, both the Tychonic model, in which the Sun revolved around the Earth, while planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn revolved around the Sun;

and the Copernican model, in which the Earth, third planet from the Sun, and the other five planets all revolved around the Sun;

both models, Tychonic and Copernican, successfully explain the phases of Venus.