Venus is often considered the Evening Star or the Morning Star, depending on which time of day it is up and dominating the twilight. For example, until late September 2010, Venus will appear as a brilliant yellow star in the evening sky, right after sunset. Located 15° above the western horizon one hour after sundown, it remains on view until after 10 P.M. local daylight time.
At the beginning of June, Venus spans 13″ across and shows a gibbous disk 80-percent lit. By late in the month, the disk has grown to 16″ and the phase has shrunk to 70-percent illumination. The planet shines at a stunning -4 magnitude, about ten times brighter than the brightest star Sirius, and by far the brightest celestial object after the Sun and Moon. Venus is so bright due to a combination of factors.
Venus is covered with an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid. These clouds reflect 70-percent of the sunlight that hits them. For comparison, the Earth reflects 36-percent and Mars and the Moon around 15-percent of the sunlight striking them. Venus is also rather large, being only a bit smaller than the Earth – its radius is 95-percent as large as Earth’s. The final piece of Venus’ brightness puzzle is its close distance to Earth. Right now, the planet is 1.2 astronomical units (110 million miles) from Earth.
Thank you David Archuleta for your tweets on twitter that often give me a golden opportunity to go all geeky. 
You just got to love sunlight reflecting off of that sulfuric acid!
archiefandoc(Quote)
Geek away – when I read David’s tweet I thought, hmmm don’t know much about Venus. I’ve got to go google, lol. Now I don’t have to!
awestruck(Quote)
This is cool AFD, you gall all geeky whenever you want!
marc(Quote)