Venus and Mars in the daytime

[Tim]

Just spent a little while before it got dark observing Venus, and then Mars, while they were a bit higher in the sky.

Venus was easily spottable, but Mars not to the naked eye, thank goodness for GOTO eh?

Even as high as they were the atmospheric disturbance was still the major factor, but at odd moments a slight bit of detail could be made out on Mars, my TV Delos 4.5mm giving around 140X. Tried with a 2 X barlow but there was nothing to be gained.

Venus just displayed its usual white emptiness, but in its current phase I managed to get the mrs and two offspring to take a quick look too, which is a result!

Just for the hell of it I slewed to where Neptune is, close to Mars at the moment, but of course no joy there. Hoping to get the two of them on camera though in the next day or two.

Anybody else get going in twilight?

Tim

[BXRO]

Looked at Venus and the Moon at dusk occasionally as it reduces the glare from them a bit

[Peter Drew]

Yes Tim. I've been looking at Venus and Mars since 4.30pm with a 16" SCT and 20" Dobsonian. Venus gave the usual nice half Moon appearance and Mars, as you noted, showed vague signs of detail. 500x on the SCT provided a reasonable size disc but the seeing didn't give any benefit over the more usable 300x. Similar views in the 20". We will be E'ing and F'ing later when Orion rises. 

[Size9Hex]

Similar here. It sure was a lovely view to share with the family.

[mikeDnight]

Hi Tim,

I haven't observed Venus or Mars today but I have observed  them both in twighlight over the last few days. No such luxuries as go-to I'm afraid! Instead I used 16x70 binoculars to locate Mars. Sadly the seeing was awful and no detail on Mars was detected and so no sketch was made. Even Venus with its much larger diameter proved a struggle.

Mike.

 

[Tim]

2 hours ago, Peter Drew said:

Yes Tim. I've been looking at Venus and Mars since 4.30pm with a 16" SCT and 20" Dobsonian. Venus gave the usual nice half Moon appearance and Mars, as you noted, showed vague signs of detail. 500x on the SCT provided a reasonable size disc but the seeing didn't give any benefit over the more usable 300x. Similar views in the 20". We will be E'ing and F'ing later when Orion rises. 

I could at times make out a dark triangle in the centre of Mars' disc, is that what you saw Peter? I was using a 4 inch  Apo, so not too bad really.

I later went on to try and get Mars and Neptune in one shot with my DSLR and the Apo, which I have on review, but annoyingly just as I was set up for the shot really think fog came down and is still here............oh well.

Have you tried G-ing and H-ing by any chance?

[Peter Drew]

Hard enough to spot E & F most times, might not get good enough seeing for G & H. 

[Peter Drew]

No sign of E & F earlier on but as things improved, there they were. No appearance  of the Flame nebula, the transparency isn't the best tonight, ice all over the car. Brrrr. 

[Pete Presland]

Nicely reported, twilight is the only light presently i can see Venus in from my current location. Venus is fairly plain to look at, but i love following the changing phases.

[alan potts]

Tim,

I often look at Venus in light as the sun is either just gone or going and the same is true of Mars and Jupiter. I have also looked at Mars as it gets light. The other planet that really benifits from this type of observation is Mercury as it is often impossible to view after the Sun has gone down, it is also rarely visible in a truely dark sky. The one time it was in a very dark sky was from Bali when i had a sea view and it was going down pretty much verticle, of course though I had no scope.

Alan