Venus at Superior Conjunction

[N1]

An observation of Venus was made under reasonably clear skies yesterday afternoon. Separation from the centre of the solar disk was 1° 2' 55", a mere 8 arcseconds more than during closest conjunction (numbers from Stellarium). I reckon that counts.

This was a delicate, low-contrast affair and with Venus north of the Sun, required a 2x4 piece of timber extended from the house about 4m above the ground to serve as an "occulting bar". An afocal eyepiece video was all I was able to grab of this, inset is a stack from the best 20 stills.

FS60, 9mm Hutech Abbe, 6D, EF50

As usual, a rotated SOHO image (C) of Nasa, ESA, is included to show position of Venus relative to the sun.

[rustigsmed]

awesome catch Mirko - is this closest capture you've had?

cheers

[Tinderboxsky]

Absolutely fantastic catch, Mirko.

I am gob-smacked thinking about how you have managed to line up the occulting bar and manage the image captures, all on a simple non driven Alt-Az mount.

[Averton]

Impressive capture and set up Mirko. Well done!

[N1]

Thanks guys, yes this may actually have been the closest to the sun that I've observed the planet. While the 2014 conjunction was closer, the observation didn't happen until the separation was a little wider (https://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=127705). In 2024, the sun will 'occult' Venus, so it will be interesting to see just how close to the limb it can be seen. I expect safety will dictate cameras-only from a certain point in.

The occulting bar works great when it's roughly aligned with the sun's direction of drift and Venus at (or close to) conjunction, where it's about the same R.A. and either above or below the sun rather than leading or trailing it. It takes a decent amount of time for the shadow to move off the objective - something that can be easily monitored. The mount is a geared tripod head with permanently engaged gears, so optic sits as firmly as on a proper EQ head and won't move even when it's bumped by accident. However, the whole setup is still light enough to be moved easily to keep it inside the shadow. There is also an UV/IR block filter in front of the diagonal, and grey filters and/or sunglasses do a decent job of dealing with the visual glare from scattered sunlight when there's a bit of haze around.

[Anth10]

Super scientific Mirko - love it.

[Dave882]

That’s fantastic! Occulting bars…I learned something new today!!
Great work:thumbsup:

[EpickCrom]

Nice work Mirko:thumbsup: