Venus...At Last!

[David55]

At last I've been able to observe Venus with a telescope.

I've seen it lots of times away from my house, but even with binoculars, it is just a bright white 'star'. The trouble is that the trees and houses round about and the lowish elevation make this planet a chancy spot from the back garden. But today a unique astronomical conjunction occurred viz: early darkness, trees without leaves, no cloud and being home early from work, meant that I could finally observe it with my dob.

The elevation was low and the scope never cooled down completely, so it was the visual equivalent of tuning in a distant station on shortwave, a single target fading rippling and becoming first 2 then 3 then one again, but I could still see the crescent, proving it was a planet.

I'm pretty pleased with that. Plenty of room for improvement next time.

[alan potts]

Good for you David.

I have just been looking at it myself the creasent is getting noticeably thinner every day now.  I too was treed out a little while ago by one of my own trees, I have 3 massive walnut trees over that way which are only a problem when either Venus of the Moon are low .

Alan

[ronl]

The trouble is, the weather has turned mild, a week or so

back we had frost and the seeing was good, Venus was

fabulous, plus she is lower to the horizon, that's why you

had a poor view, I had the same problem last night with

Jupiter, reasonable view but not much detail, plus thin

cloud didn't help, when it get's colder hopefully it will get 

better. Glad you got your first look at her, she lives up

to her name.

[Special K]

Well done, David it's great isn't it?! Sunday being Sunday, I had plenty of time to get the scope cooled in time for a view. Break in cloud only lasted 10 mins but that was enough to get as crisp a view as possible. Lovely crescent! I am surprised how much mag I could put on it as during the summer it was just a rusty blob. That was around summer solstice. Worth another view soon if possible.