Venus last night

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi guys.

Was setting up to try and catch Mars last night, looked around to my left and saw Venus was in a gap in the trees in my backyard, so decided to capture him.

It wasn't easy though, very bad seeing, very low altitude.. the amount of red/blue shift required was HUGE!

And my focus isn't quite right on this one, I was running out of time to capture it before it went too low into a tree, and so this is the best I could get it by hand without hooking up the motorised focuser. Very hard to focus by hand when you've basically got a blue and a red image wobbling about

Anyway here it is.. through the eyepiece it looked magical, best I've ever seen Venus which such a crescent and so bright! and big! Shame about the seeing though.

[Robby]

That's amazing Mike! Who would have thought such a phase would be so bright. Anyone tried to cast a venus shaowdow this week. It's about as bright as it gets... I heard one comment from a DSO observer that he almost considered not observing as Venus was too bright..!

[ving (David)]

well captured mike. if you over expose it will the said shaddow show up?

if i observe venus its usually early in the evening so it doesnt look so bright

[RB (Andrew)]

Nice one Mike.

Don't forget to check out Venus and the Crecent moon on Sunday Night.
Give it a go with the 350D and zoom.

[Starkler (Geoff)]

I reckon Venus looks good around dusk, just as it becomes visible naked eye

Originally Posted by Robby

That's amazing Mike! Who would have thought such a phase would be so bright. Anyone tried to cast a venus shaowdow this week. It's about as bright as it gets... I heard one comment from a DSO observer that he almost considered not observing as Venus was too bright..!

I often find I have that problem here, never tried casting it's shadow though.
And at times the zodiacal light can be a real pain too!

btw, great image Mike!!

regards,CS

[asimov (John)]

Nice image Mike. I was going to have a go at Venus tonight but it's clouding over, pity about that...I feel the seeing conditions were going to be good too!

[davidpretorius]

great shot ice!