Venus approaches inferior conjunction

Forums Venus Venus approaches inferior conjunction

Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #573710
    Nick James
    Participant

    This short movie shows the change in appearance of Venus over the last three weeks. We are now less than two weeks away from inferior conjunction and I’ll try to keep the movie updated if I get clear evenings. All these clips are at the same scale. The movie was shot using a Celestron 6 and a Canon 550 DSLR operating in centre crop 640×480 video mode at 50 fps.

    #578020
    Neil Morrison
    Participant

     Just  caught a few moments observing Venus as a very slim crescent  hanging above the tree line at  18.25 gmt   tonight  13th March using Venerable C8 .

     Just had enough time to call  my wife out to  glimpse the  Slim crescent before  clouds  intervened .  Good to get even a few moments of clear  evening sky . 

    #578033
    Neil Morrison
    Participant

    Yesterday 15th March a clear sky after a very warm afternoon  enabled a further viewing of Venus . Several images were  made the  attached being at 18.12 GMT. The  equipment used was my C8 ( circa 1985) on a Super Polaris mount and eyepiece projection using a 20 mm Plossl. Sony 65a SLT  exposure 1/30sec.  Polar alingment  was done by projecting  the Sun’s noonday shadow and drawing a chalk reference line.

    #578035
    Nick James
    Participant

    Nice image. It really is great fun following Venus at this point in its orbit. From our latitude Venus is almost directly above the Sun at sunset now so the horns of the crescent are pointing upwards. Your image is also a great demonstration of atmospheric dispersion with blue light being refracted upwards more than red. I’m hoping we’ll get some more clear opportunities over the next few days.

    #578051
    Nick James
    Participant

    Venus is now a very thin crescent only 11 degrees from the Sun. It reaches its closest angular distance on Saturday when it will be 8 degrees away. This is a video from this afternoon in windy conditions. Don’t try this unless you really know what you are doing. Pointing a telescope anywhere near the Sun can be very dangerous. The picture is a single still from the video. At some point I need to put this through Registax.

    The video was shot with a Canon 550D in 640×480 centre crop video mode using a Celestron 6 with a x2 Barlow.

    #578058
    Michael O’Connell
    Participant

    1% Sliver of Venus from this evening, 24th March.

    Taken with TEC140 refractor, 2x barlow, and DMK41 camera.

    #578059
    Nick James
    Participant

    Very nice image! I’ve just been looking at it visually here but it is very difficult since there is a lot of cirrus around, most of which seems to have come from aircraft contrails.

    #578061
    Nick James
    Participant

    Chris,

    Your image has gone AWOL. I had cirrus problems too but it has just cleared although the seeing is dreadful. Here’s a single frame from my video taken about 30 mins ago.

    #578060
    Chris Dole
    Participant

    Nick, Managed to get this image just after conjunction. Took me ages as I was struggling with cirrus, terrible seeing and gusts of wind. It’s not great but I’m amazed it’s as good as it is considering the conditions.

    Chris.

    #578066
    Michael O’Connell
    Participant

    Taken with TEC140 refractor, 2x barlow, and DMK41 camera

    #578067
    Peter Carson
    Participant

    Hi,
    A group of us using Andrew Robertson’s Mak-Cass telescope observed Venus at around 15.45hrs yesterday afternoon during an astro camp at Haw Wood farm in Suffolk. Venus was at Inferior Conjunction at the time and I was really suprised how easy it was to see in the telescope set again the pale blue sky.
    This was a first for me and something I will remember …thanks Andrew.

    #578070
    Nick James
    Participant

    Glad you saw it visually Peter. This IC is relatively easy at 8 deg elongation. I have seen Venus at previous conjunctions when the elongation was only 5 deg. You need to be really careful and have a very clear sky. In fact, I also remember trying to see a comet very close to the Sun using one of Denis’ telescopes. We were very careful and one advantage of a dome is that we could block out the Sun so that there was no chance of getting it in the telescope. There is a picture of me doing that somewhere but it is probably best not published for health and safety reasons.

Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.