Two Sides of Venus - you won't believe these single frame images

[Stub Mandrel]

Last night I left my scope parked, it even escaped the ravages of the lawn being mowed!

To my surprise, when I looked at around noon, Venus was clearly visible in the 9x50 finder about half a view across from the crosshairs.

It looked like a small rugby ball at x120, but I set up the mono toupcam with a deep blue filter. (Wratten 48).

Oh dear, a fair description of the view would be that it resembled a burning rose seen through choppy water. I have no idea how good my focus was, but a disc would briefly appear.

After failing to locate Mercury (well it whizzed past on the display on a spiral search once or twice ?, I thought I would give up for now and try again at 5:00pm, in the hope the seeing would improve compared to the heat of the day.

First run it was better, but not much.

Then I got three runs of almost perfect seeing with occasional flurries of disturbance. Amazing steadiness and I could not only see a clear (and even sharp!) outline but also noticeable darkening near the terminator and poles. I almost started to try and convince myself I could see vague patterns... but I'll wait and see what they stack like.

I could even a tiny rugby ball shape with an ep in my guider, at just x23.

A stark demonstration of the impact of seeing.

[orion25]

Interesting report, Neil. I can't wait to see what the stack reveals! At 33N 83W, I've visually seen Mercury many times and have easily made out phases, but I have yet to see any detail on the small world. I never tried to stack any images of it though. My polarizer might reveal a few details, too. Hmmmmm, a new project in sight, lol!

Reggie

[Stub Mandrel]

A random frame from the good video, and a specially selected good one from the bad video. I wonder if one issue was thermals within eth red-hot tube at 12:00, by 5:00 it was in shade. Sharp-eyed forum members with great experience may just spot the difference...