Phosphorus (morning star) Venus is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun and the Moon, outshining the planets Jupiter and Saturn but, while these rise high in the sky, Venus never does. This may lie behind myths about deities associated with the morning star proudly striving for the highest place among the gods and being cast down. In Greek mythology, Hesiod calls Phosphorus a son of Astraeus and Eos, but other say of Cephalus and Eos, or of Atlas. The Latin poet Ovid, speaking of Phosphorus and Hesperus (the Evening Star, the evening appearance of the planet Venus) as identical, makes
Mercury (planet) its greatest eastern elongation happens only during late winter in the Southern Hemisphere. In both of these cases, the angle at which the planet's orbit intersects the horizon is maximized, allowing it to rise several hours before sunrise in the former instance and not set until several hours after sundown in the latter from southern mid-latitudes, such as Argentina and South Africa. An alternate method for viewing Mercury involves observing the planet during daylight hours when conditions are clear, ideally when it is at its greatest elongation. This allows the planet to be found easily, even when using telescopes with