Fomalhaut and Achernar in full daylight
With lack of enough clear skies for AP, I did some visual observations here in Oz between clouds in the past few nights with my ED 110mm.
But yesterday (after)noon the sky was so clear blue in Katoomba / Mt Victoria, that around 13:00 (Sun about at its highest point) I set up my scope and looked up Venus (a no-brainer) and then looked a few objects:
* Mercury: FAIL. too close to the Sun and too faint (+1.5) and poor seeing
* Fomalhaut +1.1, not too difficult, I could see the star, almost overhead, only 21º from the Sun.
* Achernar +0.4, very easy, particular when using a polarizer filter which darkens the blue sky background without fainting the star (or planet).
Polarization filters work best when the object is about 90º from the Sun.
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