Venus 18th March

[Dave882 (David)]

Been at least 6months since I've captured this beautiful goddess! It's pretty hard to miss her in the evening sky when it's clear such a beautiful sight!

Unfortunately positioned right over the roof of my house in the late afternoon its hard to get a stable image but happy to get an something although even in IR850 none of that fancy detail some others can achieve .

c14 no edge
eq8
asi462mc (UV/IR) 1ms / 3min capture
asi290mm (IR850) 3ms / 3min capture
Zwo ADC
ASICAP
AS!3
Registax6

As a side note - afterwards I also did a bit of a visual session on Venus - put the binoviewers on and for the first time ever tried out this very old Meade variable polariser eyepiece. Wow that was quite spectacular actually. With the image dimmed right down (sky appearing pitch black in the afternoon sky) Venus lost her colour dispersion and you could catch her gibbous shape and a positively 3D appearance. Beautiful!!

[N1 (Mirko)]

Great catch!
Agree she's quite the sight when conditions are right.
Just out of curiosity - did you also try to pair the ASI462 with the IR 850? Exposure times should be even shorter (tenths of ms), increasing your chances of freezing moments of good seeing.

[Dave882 (David)]

Originally Posted by N1

Great catch!
Agree she's quite the sight when conditions are right.
Just out of curiosity - did you also try to pair the ASI462 with the IR 850? Exposure times should be even shorter (tenths of ms), increasing your chances of freezing moments of good seeing.

Hi Mirko- cheers mate. No I’m not sure I’ve ever done that since it’s a osc I presume it would be the other way around- since it’s only capturing the IR photons with the “R” in the bayer matrix?? it would be dimmer and require more exposure time as it’s only utilising 1/4 of the sensor. Having said that the 462 is supposed to have very good IR response so even though the exposures would need to be longer it may well pick up some detail… got me thinking now…

[N1 (Mirko)]

Give it a try. The 462 is one of the best NIR cameras currently available to amateur astronomers. Its RGB Bayer filters all become pretty transparent beyond red, not just the "R" one. The chart at ZWO's website shows that quite nicely. It should be significantly more sensitive than the 290 (which itself is a good choice for the UV end), regardless of MM or MC.

[Averton (P and C)]

Nice capture David!
We have been hoping to get an image of Venus for a bit but the weather just will not co-operate. It was supposed to be clear late afternoon/early evening yesterday but it didn't quite happen. By the time it did clear Venus had disappeared behind the house
Love your images!

[Dave882 (David)]

Thanks Clare & Peter - yes a challenging target from urban locations and with hot roofs etc even more so. Thanks to Mirko’s suggestions I think I’ll experiment with the 462mc without a filter next time and see what happens. Cheers

[Averton (P and C)]