Yellow coloured venus last night

[AdeKing]

Last night, I went to a location that I figured would be a good dark sky site, Badbury Rings in Dorset.

The cloud gods did not however smile on me and the closer I got, the more cloud there was. 

Anyway, I perservered for a couple of hours, and was rewarded with lovely views of a yellow coloured Venus (and Jupiter) just before they disappeared below the horizon.

At first, I thought that Venus was a plane coming in to land with its landing lights on because of the colour.

I understand why the colour was yellow because of the amount of atmosphere filtering the light, but I had never personally observed this before.  Most of my observing is done from my back garden on the northern edge of Poole, with its associated light pollution, and I lose visibility of Venus and Jupiter well before they set due to trees and surrounding houses so don't get to observe the planets close to the horizon.

Last night was a real eye opener for me, and will make me make the effort to get out to a dark site more often.

Little else was seen due to cloud coverage, and certainly no Aurora last night despite having been photographed in the area on Monday.....well I can live in hope.

Thanks for listening.

[Paul M]

I didn't see Venus last night but I did notice the tainted colour of the Moon as it set over the roof to my west. I was surprised considering how blue the sky had been all day and into the evening. I almost set the scope up earlier on, thinking that Saturn would be a nice target. Glad I never bothered there was a lot of muck hanging to my south. Spread out contrails ans the like.

[alan potts]

I see a yellowish colouration of a good few targets here when they are very low, often further coloured by a little blue and red of atmospheric abberation. I am sure the yellowing is only to do with the amount of Earths atmostphere you are viewing the target through. I was looking at Venus while it was still fairly high (bear in mind where I am it could be a fair difference from UK) and I didn't see any colour or much else for that matter.

Alan.

[AdeKing]

I see a yellowish colouration of a good few targets here when they are very low, often further coloured by a little blue and red of atmospheric abberation. I am sure the yellowing is only to do with the amount of Earths atmostphere you are viewing the target through.

Hi Alan,

Yes, I'm sure that its to do with the amount of atmosphere, but it waas a real eye opener in terms of what a difference a few miles can make to what you can observe.  I actually watched Venus & Jupiter set below the horizon last night whereas normally they just slip into obscurity behind some awful Leyland Cypress trees.

I will definitely be getting out from my back garden more often.

[Piero]

I was also watching Venus last night and I didn't notice any yellow tint on the planet.

It was very nice, with a clear phase of about 40% already visible at 28x. A few times I even had the impression that the clouds in the central part of the south hemisphere, were slightly darker than the rest of the planet. Really beautiful!

On my telescope the planet is slightly yellowish when the focus is not perfect.

I noticed that the moon was a bit yellow last night, with my eyes at least.

I observed in civil twilight.

Piero

[Grotemobile]

Last night there was no jet stream over  

the country, which really helped .

Looking @ the moon @ 22x was

really good with the binos .

Saturn was the  star once again.

Could make out the phase on

Venus, very easily with the bins.

Steve