Soon it will be time to bid a fond adieu to the "Evening Star," the planet Venus. Since the end of February, it has been a very prominent object in the evening sky soon after sunset; the "sole survivor" of the spectacular massing of the planets in the spring. Indeed, all the other naked eye planets have either fled into the morning sky or are too near the Sun to be readily seen.

That will soon be the fate of Venus as well. Nearness and a perpetually cloudy atmosphere account for the appearance of this planet in our sky. For Venus is not merely visible: With the exception of the Sun and the Moon, it’s the brightest object that we can see in our sky.

Venus reaches greatest brilliancy on Sept. 26, shining at magnitude –4.5 (negative magnitudes are reserved for the brightest objects) and casting an eerily brilliant light from low in the west.

Toward the end of September Venus will be setting well before the end of twilight. Its sunlit hemisphere currently is oriented mostly away from the Earth, so it appears as a narrow crescent visible in a small telescope or even in good firmly braced 7-power binoculars.

Telescopic observers may want to keep Venus under surveillance in the coming weeks and watch this crescent grow rapidly thinner and longer.

If you’re using binoculars look for the slender crescent shape as soon as the planet becomes visible, while it is still against a bright sky background. Because Venus is now so brilliant, you may be able to glimpse it right at sundown or even before.

In October, Venus starts the month low in the west-southwest during evening twilight. Remember to look early. The planet sets about 70 minutes after the Sun on October 1st and about three minutes earlier each evening thereafter.

By the 13th Venus sets only a half-hour after the Sun and then will be gone. It will pass between the Earth and the Sun at what's called inferior conjunction on Halloween, then reappear by early November in the predawn sky.