Venus was in conjunction with Spica on September 1, but due to unfavorable weather I missed that event; they are still relatively close five days later on the 6th.  Venus shines at magnitude -4.50 this evening and lies 4°05'55" to the left of Spica.  Venus' movement south of the ecliptic, which compounds the problem of the ecliptic's low angle with the western horizon at this time of year, makes it very challenging to see even though on this date Venus' elongation from the Sun is still 43°28'48", just slightly less than the maximum it can possibly have.   Unannotated image.