Events · September 11, 2026

On 14 September the Moon Wipes Venus From a Daytime Sky

On Monday 14 September, late in the morning, the Moon will pass in front of Venus. Not in a black sky: in broad daylight, under a Sun some forty degrees high. From Paris, Venus goes out at 11:26 CEST behind the invisible edge of the crescent and re-emerges at 12:34 along the sunlit edge; from London, reappearance is at 11:35 BST. It is the strangest appointment of the month, and one of the few celestial events you can watch over lunch.

An occultation of Venus is not rare in itself: the Moon produces them regularly somewhere on Earth. Seeing one from home is much rarer. The next one visible from France and its neighbours will wait until 25 May 2028, at dawn, with the Moon five degrees high. The one on 14 September rides high, in the middle of the day, on a Monday. Its price is of a different kind: you have to find Venus in a blue sky.

The times, city by city

The clock depends heavily on where you stand: that is parallax, the Moon is close enough that two cities do not see it against the same patch of sky. All times below are local.

The table says something awkward for the west of Europe: from Paris, Brussels or Madrid, the disappearance happens at the very moment the pair rises. What you will actually see is the reappearance, an hour later, eight degrees above the eastern horizon. From London, the Moon rises with Venus already hidden. Rome, Vienna and Athens get the full performance.

How to see Venus in daylight

It can be done with the naked eye, and sailors and pilots have always done it: at magnitude -4.75, Venus sits far above the daytime visibility threshold. The whole difficulty is knowing where to look, and on 14 September nature provides the pointer: the crescent Moon, thin but findable, will be exactly in the right place.

• Before 11:15 CEST, look for the crescent very low in the east-southeast. Venus is glued to it, less than half a degree away.
• Lose it, find it again: in daylight the eye has nothing to lock onto. Note the crescent's position against a landmark, a chimney or an aerial, and come back to it.
• In binoculars, one absolute precaution: the Sun is 40 degrees from the pair. Never sweep the sky towards it; stand in the shadow of a wall that blocks the Sun, and aim at the Moon only. A glimpse of the Sun through binoculars costs a retina.
• At reappearance, around 12:34 in Paris, watch the sunlit side of the crescent, at its lower edge. Venus does not pop back instantly: its disc spans 37 arcseconds, and the Moon takes a minute and a half to uncover it. Through binoculars you literally watch the planet switch back on in stages.

That same evening around 20:00, the pair will still stand side by side in the western twilight, the Moon having slid four degrees onward: the easy photograph, if not the occultation, as with August's earthshine.

Why the planet enters on the dark side

The Moon moves along its orbit from west to east, by about half a degree per hour, its own diameter. On a waxing crescent, that leading edge is the night edge. Venus therefore disappears behind a limb that the blue sky renders strictly invisible: it will seem to go out against empty air, in slices, over 98 seconds. The reappearance happens along the lit edge, which is far easier to watch.

What these figures do not tell you

The times are computed to a tenth of a minute, but for the exact places listed, not for the town next door: thirty kilometres already shift the contacts by tens of seconds. They are given for apparent positions, atmospheric refraction included: classical occultation predictions, computed without refraction, put the Paris disappearance almost two minutes later, precisely because it plays out right at the horizon. Eight degrees up, at reappearance, the gap shrinks to a few seconds. The SkyChart sky map places the Moon and Venus in real time for wherever you stand, daylight included. The one parameter nobody computes is the sky itself: a veil of cirrus is enough to drown Venus in the blue, where it would not have troubled any night-time observation. If the 14th turns milky, console yourself that same evening at dusk; the pair will still be there.

This article was translated from the French edition by AI, then reviewed before publication. The figures are not translated: times, altitudes and magnitudes are computed by SkyChart and are identical in both editions.

• Occultations
• September 2026 sky
• Venus