Venus brightnes

[RedWhiteArcher]

For some reason yesterday I decided to turn off the computer at 4am and before getting to bed decided to check out the skies. Well, Saturn and Jupiter should be high above so Venus should be here. I saw low in the sky a bright star but it was of a grayish color and not as bright as Jupiter and Saturn. I checked the Starry Night and  Venus seemed to fit in the location. So the question is: "Does Venus ever get below the 3rd brightest object in the sky?"

[davidf01]

I think that the "official" magnitudes (e.g. according to www.heavens-above.com/planetsummary.asp) around now are:
Saturn: 0.1
Jupiter: -1.9
Venus: -3.9
But I don't doubt what you saw. Venus could have looked dimmer because it was lower in the sky and was seen through more atmospheric soup, and because the approaching dawn might have brightened that part of the sky somewhat, so that Venus would look dimmer relative to its background than Jupiter and Saturn, which were higher up in a darker part of the sky.

I don't think Venus ever gets dimmer than about -3.9. It's always brighter than, say, Mars, for at least 4 reasons:
-it's closer to the sun, so more light reaches it
-its cloud cover is highly reflective, so a higher percentage of light that reaches it bounces off
-it's larger than Mars, so there's (usually) more area to see
-it's (usually) closer to us, so more of the reflected light reaches us

[RedWhiteArcher]

Tnx. Though so.

[archiebald]

Don't forget that the apparent brightness will also change in relation to Venus's phase.

Venus will appear more "full" when it is on the other side of the sun, but as it gets closer to us, we see a crescent.