Venus' dark side in infrared

[von Tom]

The low speed altitude motor control on my goto Dobsonian isn't working at the moment so I've had to make do with hand guiding for this image of Venus. Full spectrum modified Canon EOS 600D, 5x Teleconverter, Baader 1.25" 685nm IR pass filter, SkyWatcher 12" Dobsonian, HS video mode stack of 700 frames, ISO 512,000 and 1/15 sec exposures (Magic Lantern firmware mod).

It shows an overexposed 30% crescent Venus in infrared light. Visible in this image, is the night side of the planet. I understand that it is possible that this may be from the IR emissions from the surface of Venus. Will definitely be doing some more shots as the crescent gets thinner and the planet bigger. Would love to see what others can see too.

Cheers,

Tom

[deanm]

Tom - as I understand it, Venus' CO2-dense atmosphere greenhouse-traps thermal energy, hence the runaway atmospheric heating.

So, I'd imagine that your IR images are of the outer surface of the atmosphere rather than that of the planet.

But I'm often wrong!

Dean

[von Tom]

Thanks Dean. I've had a search around and it appears that at 1000nm the Venusian atmosphere is transparent so apparently surface imaging is possible. The full spectrum 660D can go that far which got me wondering.

Here's an interesting article I found just now:
http://www.planetary-astronomy-and-imaging.com/en/image-surface-venus/

Very exciting! :)