Here are three pictures of Venus from the past, showing how bright it is near inferior conjunction. The dates of the conjunctions were 10-31-02, 1-16-98, and 6-10-96. Inferior conjunction is when, seen from above the Solar System, Venus would appear exactly between The Earth and Sun. That´s also when transits occur. Venus is now predicted to appear brighter than any star or other planet. Magnitude -3.9. Remember that the disk is now at it´s biggest, and it is much more reflective than any other planet.
- I found the pictures of some transits of Venus. Nobody has noticed the past transit of 1996 that was almost against the Sun. SOHO is not aligned to the perpendicular of the ecliptic. When the planet is in front of the Sun, the error of alignment between SOHO, the planet and the Sun is bigger (due to the complex orbit of soho).
- Ben
