My first look at Venus through the telescope

[cpittman35]

I just had my first viewing of Venus through my telescope. Pretty cool sight to see.  

I have a small window of time before it sneaks below the trees so I went for it. 

My best description would be it had the appearance of a super hot roadway in the middle of August. It had that heat mirage look to it.. I've been waiting all year to get a glimpse of our super hot neighbor. 

[Knighty2112]

Well done. Apart from the phases of the planet there's not really too much to see on Venus, apart from the glare from its clouds.  Well caught!  

[Linda]

Isn't it cool, looking at another planet? An Venus is not even the most interesting. It is always cloudy and therefore vague in the telescope. Mars, Jupiter and Saturn can be seen a lot sharper and you will be able to see features. But they are far way, so they won't be very big.

[andrew63]

I love the naked eye view of Venus, early morning or evening - there's always something serene about it.

 

andrew

[Special K]

Despite not being able to see details this is a great planet to observe. If you have a moon filter or a UHC filter, it works really well to tone down the glare.....especially if you want to see the phase.  Last year views were really good when it was at elongation.  Mercury is like a smaller version but never gets as high up so is a bigger challenge.  Thanks for sharing your enjoyment!  

[cpittman35]

It was neat to see for sure. 

Mars is just a dot in my sky view now. Jupiter is gone below the horizon and Saturn is getting super low now.  When they were up I checked on them frequently haha. 

The glare was definitely visible. 

[andrew63]

Just caught it this evening, very low down, and shimmering in the haze.

 

andrew

[A budding astronomer]

Can't wait for Venus to be rising up soon in Ireland, got to see it naked eye on Friday.

 

Adam

[chiltonstar]

The first view is always a stunning sight, and you're likely to look many times after that!

Tonight, it was low down still at 16:30, but I moved my grab 'n go scopes (ED80 and Mak 127) to the SE corner of my garden before Venus was obscured by the neighbour's rainforest. Fairly sharp in both scopes at x200, with some shading on the crescent easily visible in the ED80 with an 80A filter (not in the Mak, although I've seen it with this scope a few times in the past). I've found over the years that my 102mm long focus Vixen frac shows the shading best, but the scopes cool down time is a bit too long if Venus is heading for the trees......

Chris

[alan potts]

Venus was the very first object I looked at using my brothers 30mm zoom spotter scope from Dixons. It was all very warm and cumffy as we were looking through the front room window, but at a massive X30 we were both able to see the quarter phase that was on show. That sort of started me off down the road to where I am today, that was 1971 though I had been watching the Sky at Night as early as 1968, I could only watch it when my father was at sea as it was always on late.

Sadly as has been said Venus don't show us very much though I have managed to see some detail with my larger scopes at over X300, I found viewing in light sky helped as it sort of takes the sting of the surface brightness away somewhat. Another memeber Mike also told me to try filters which I have still to do, the problem is it is lowish for me so it must be awfully low in the UK.

Alan