 Here's something else it has phases Venus ever had a visitor look through your telescope at Venus and say hey That looks like the moon. Well, here's a simple way to demonstrate why Tell your visitors. They're all viewing Venus from the earth. Here's a model Sun and here's a model Venus Venus orbits the Sun inside the Earth's orbit like this Watch how Venus is lit up as its orbits It has phases When you're showing Venus in the telescope place the ball in the same position relative to the light as Venus is to the Sun They will see the same amount of ball lit up as Venus