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Spotting Venus during daylight, naked eye observation
Just spotted Venus at 3:20 pm from Canberra, with the sun shining brightly!
Forgive the excitement, as I've always wanted to spot Sirius or Venus during broad daylight, without any aids. I've had a few goes, mapping out true north at local noon and trying to make out Venus in the sun's glare, but it was impossible. I just assumed that when people said "you have to know exactly where to look" it was really code for "I'm claiming I saw it and you can't prove me wrong . . . "
Last night I was reading Dava Sobel's "The Planets" where she wrote that Napoleon saw it at noon while giving a speech. That made me determined to see it for myself!
Went out at midday and it was clouded over. Checked PocketStars PC at 3:00 and it said 34 degrees azimuth, 77 elevation from memory. Went out, got my line to true north and stood in the shade trying to guess the azimuth / elevation I needed. I spotted dozens of floating white dandelion seeds high up. After three minutes or so I was sure one of the seeds wasn't moving, so I looked away and looked back. Sure enough, an unmistakeable very white, very small, spherical object. I had to cup my hands eyes over my eyes to be sure as the sun was very glaring.
I walked away and decided to have one more confirmatory look. To my annoyance, it was just as hard to pick up and also took 2 or 3 minutes to find. But it was there, in the same spot.
If you're interested, now is a good time to see it as its apparent angular separation from the sun makes spotting it a lot easier.
Now for Sirius!
Cheers,
Bill
Canberra, Australia
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