Second try at Venus in UV/IR - 20-03-20

[ArmyAirForce]

A second Venus with clouds capture from March 20th. 20,000 UV frames were captured and 50,000 in IR. All the captures during the evening needed to be paused due to multiple passing clouds. 1,000 frames of each channel were stacked. Captures were done on my 200PDS scope with x2 TAL barlow.

Despite the passing clouds, I had more time to mess around with the settings and by pushing up the UV gain to 95%, I was able to lower the exposure and speed up the capture rate to 30fps, but still very slow compared to the 263fps of the IR captures. While my laptop has an SSD to capture onto, it only has USB2 ports, so even with a small region of interest, capture rate is limited.

I was about to try capturing the IR channel through the x3 Televue barlow for a larger image, but using the x2 data for the UV channel enlarged in processing, but a large wet looking cloud was approaching and the rain began part way through closing up the observatory.

 

 

[CraigT82]

Nice work. Some good detail visible in the UV

[mikeDnight]

That's a fascinating image Stephen. I was immediately drawn to what looks like high cloud on the limb, giving the appearance of a bright region bulging above the general limb itself. And the planet looks to be a crescent despite it not yet having reached dichotomy. This has fascinated visual observers for decades, as even when at dichotomy the planet will generally appear to be gibbous or crescent. I'm also fascinated by the darker cloud bands extending from the terminator. Excellent! 

Edited March 21, 2020 by mikeDnight

[ArmyAirForce]

Thanks for the interesting interpretation of the image. With Jupiter and Saturn too low for me to image, seeing clouds on Venus has been a fascination for some time, but I've only recently had the money to justify the filter purchase!

[Pete Presland]

Certainly some nice detail in the UV wavelength, nicely combined as well.