If Venus happens to be visible in the evening sky, observe the planet with a small telescope once a week for a month. On each night, make a drawing of the crescent that you see. From your drawings, can you determine if the planet is nearer or farther from the Earth than the Sun is? Do your drawings show any changes in the shape of the crescent from one week to the next? If so, can you deduce if Venus is coming toward us or moving away from us?

Observing the night sky can be a transformative experience, especially when using a telescope. If you've embarked on observing Venus, a telescope can greatly enhance what you're able to see. Small telescopes can reveal the bright crescent phase of Venus, which cannot be discerned with the naked eye. When setting up your telescope, ensure it's stabilized to avoid shaky images, and if possible, use a mount to track the planet as it moves across the sky due to Earth's rotation.

For the best observations, try to view Venus during twilight, when the sky is not fully dark, to reduce the glare and improve contrast. Be patient and give your eyes time to adjust. Over the course of a month, weekly observations will provide snapshots that, when sequenced together, tell the story of Venus's motion and aspects of its orbit.

The movement of planets like Venus against the backdrop of stars is governed by the laws of planetary motion, first described by Johannes Kepler. These laws explain how planets orbit the sun in an elliptical fashion, with the sun at one focus of the ellipse. As a result, the distance between planets and the sun varies over time.

When you observe Venus regularly, you are seeing the planet at different points in its orbit. Due to this elliptical orbit and your perspective from Earth, Venus appears to move through various phases, much like the Moon. If Venus is moving away from Earth, it will slowly transition to a full phase, and when it is moving closer, it exhibits a larger, more distinct crescent. This understanding helps astronomers to predict the positions of planets and is essential for anyone studying planetary motion.

Similar to our Moon, Venus goes through a cycle of phases depending on its position relative to Earth and the Sun. These phases are full, gibbous, quarter, crescent, and new. The observations of Venus's crescent changing over time reflect its orbit around the Sun and its changing distance from Earth.

When Venus is between Earth and the Sun, we see it as a slim crescent. As it moves slightly away, the crescent appears to grow because we're able to see more of its dayside. The largest crescent phase indicates that Venus is closest to Earth, an event known as inferior conjunction. On the contrary, when Venus appears to have a smaller crescent or even a full phase, it's because it is on the opposite side of the Sun, at superior conjunction. Through careful observation and recording, these changes reveal Venus's position relative to Earth and provide insight into the intriguing dance of planetary motion.