Cloud detail on Venus (Schuler UV first light)

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi all

I finally had the opportunity to capture a first light image of Venus with the new Schuler UV filter, on the morning of the 30th December in reasonable seeing.

It's now taken up residence in the 5th slot of my Atik manual filter wheel, and works quite well in revealing the cloud detail on Venus. The image was taken with the DMK21AU04, with both the 5x powermate (top image) and 2x barlow (bottom image).

The image is considerably dimmer with the UV filter; I could only do 15fps (1/15s exposure) - even then the histogram was less than half full.

More experimentation is required to find the optimum capture settings for my setup, and I need to play around with processing to get the lovely false colour images by guys like Sean Walker, Yuri, Damian Peach etc.

But i'm happy with it for the first light.. I probably won't get a chance to capture it much more before it meets with the Sun again

Thanks for looking.

[davidpretorius]

very very nice...... i tried a few mornings ago, but alas....too much jelly.

well done Mike

[bird (Anthony Wesley)]

Nice, good stuff!

Bird

[Matty P (Matt)]

Lovely image, Mike.

Great to see that the UV filter has taken the 5th slot of your Atik filter wheel.

Matt

[John K]

Very nice Mike, looks like you are in business for imaging Venus!

[ving (David)]

hey cool stuff mate
like the UV shots

[iceman (Mike)]

Thanks guys, I've processed all of this on the laptop so not sure what it looks like on a proper monitor but i've got so much data backing up to process I had to get some of it done

I'm looking forward to trying it again.

[iceman (Mike)]

Here is a false-colour version which helps to show up the clouds a bit better.

[matt]

Very nice, Mike.

The false colour image is very similar to the sort of work Damian Peach has been doing with his Venus images.

[edwardsdj (Doug)]

Awesome images Mike

It amazes me you've captured so much atmospheric detail on Venus.

The list of planetary imaging targets seems ever expanding

[spearo (Frank)]

That is simply amazing stuff, never thought that could be captured!
fabulous
frank