Venus is the second planet in our solar system. It has a very inhospitable atmosphere consisting of water vapour, carbon dioxide and sulphuric acid that can corrode many different metals, compounds, plastics etc.. For this reason any probes that are sent from Earth can only work for a short period before they are destroyed. Advanced radar systems have to be used to probe these clouds, such as the magellan probe that was sent by NASA.

The surface has few craters due to weathering and volcanic action. It is believed that in the past, almost the entire surface has been re-surfaced by lava from volcanic activety about 1 billion years ago.

Venus is definately the easist planet to view either with the eye, binoculars or telescopes. It is the brightest object in the sky apart from the Moon, and it also has quiet a large disk that is presented to us. Because Venus is closer to the Sun than we are, we never get to see a full disk. The only time when the full disk would be visable to Earth is when Venus was on the opposite side of the Sun to us and as we cannot see through the sun makes this impossible.

Due to the brightness of Venus, it is unlikely that you will see much in the way of features in its clouds. Digital images of Venus can have their contrast changed to view the cloud formation, and is really the only way amateurs can see any detail.