If the planet Venus is closer to the Sun that the Earth... AND at no point does its orbit ever cross that of the Earth's, how is it that you can see Venus in the night sky?

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/3811/orbit3as1.jpg

~String

The area you have shaded as the "View from the Earth of the night sky" is not quite right. What you are showing is the view of the night sky at midnight. Venus is not visible at midnight, but can be visible for a time either before sunrise or after sunset.

venus is also called the morning star and the evening star. It's a bitch to photograph it because you can only see it for so much hours a day and it's mostly verry low (close to the horizon)

Also, your diagram is not to scale.

Also, your diagram is not to scale.

LOL. WHAT! You mean to tell me that our planets aren't, like, 1/4 the diameter of the sun!? ;)

Hey, it was the best I could do on Photoshop.

~String

LOL. WHAT! You mean to tell me that our planets aren't, like, 1/4 the diameter of the sun!? ;)

Hey, it was the best I could do on Photoshop.

~String

Are your orbits to scale?

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/solarsys/planet_orbits-inner.gif

venus is also called the morning star and the evening star...For most of man's history, These two were not known to be the same object. There has been a great deal of Philosophical discussion about this and the mechanism, by which words acquire their reference.

Hillery Putman (I think it was.) invented "Twin Earth," where everything is exactly as on our Earth. - Yes there is even a person there dressed exactly like you and one exactly like me pounding computer keys at this very minute, but there is one exception. Their "water", (Yes, many of them speak English also.) which freeze at 0C and boils at 100C is Not H2O, but another compound, XYZ, of same molecular mass, nutritional value, etc.

The philosophical question is what does the word, used both here and on twin Earth, "water" refer to? H2O or XYZ or both? - From here the "slipper slope" leads to all words becoming ill defined as to their reference.

In short summary:
We do not know what we are talking about.
Is the “morning star” the “evening star” or not?

She's Venus/كوكب الزهر/Venera/Венера/Gwener/Venuše/Αφροδίτη/Artizar/Véineas/Ribhinn/Ch'aska and many more.
She's smaller then earth and a bit slow but she's got a hot temper and can bright the evening and mornings skys like only the moon and sun can do better.

LOL. WHAT! You mean to tell me that our planets aren't, like, 1/4 the diameter of the sun!? ;)

Hey, it was the best I could do on Photoshop.

I think James R meant that the orbital distances are not in scale; that affects the angles involved.

LOL. WHAT! You mean to tell me that our planets aren't, like, 1/4 the diameter of the sun!? ;)

I think James R meant that the orbital distances are not in scale; that affects the angles involved.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. If the orbital distances aren't right, the angles are not as easy to see.

All that is needed to see Venus at night time is to be able to draw a line tangent to the Earth's surface which intersects Venus and touches the Earth's surface on the "night" side.

Get your scales correct and try it!