My view of Venus

[gas57]

Living in Florida using an 8 in. Dobson looking at Venus with the 30 MM  eyepiece, the one that came with the scope. When looking at Venus or any brighter light in the sky I see the object but it looks like several lights in the shape of a cross. Thats  the best way to describe it. Please see drawing sorry I don't have the camera setup. 001.bmp001.bmp001.bmp001.bmp001.bmpI am a newbie so any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Astro_Nic]

That's exactly how I saw saturn the other night - was really confused - basically 4 blobs in a star shape - no disk, no rings, nothing.  Quite annoying as I thought my 14 inch dob at high magnification would be able to see the rings.  Saturn was lowish in the sky and I did have to look past a street light, so I put it down to those issues, but I was seriously confused.  Some of the images I see on here with lesser equipment look amazing!  Scope seemed to be working ok.  Could see bands on Jupiter which was much lower in the sky and could see the ring nebula nicely, so don't think it was a scope issue.

Any help from the experts here would be a great help.

[Louis D]

You were both probably seeing diffraction spikes from the secondary mirror spider vanes if it was a cross shaped artifact.  Try creating an off-axis aperture mask from cardboard or foamboard to leave only an unobstructed circle between spider vanes.  That should get rid of the spike artifacts and decrease the dazzling effect of Venus in particular by masking down your aperture a bit.  Adjust the measurements below for your 8"/14" scopes.

[Guest]

Venus is just bright that's all there is to it.  When I look at it all I see is a blob of light.  You will need some sort of filter to really see anything.  I have 4 different filters but have been to lazy to try any of them.  The spikes are from your secondary spider, so no worries there 

[RT65CB-SWL]

7 minutes ago, Mike Q said:

Venus is just bright that's all there is to it.  When I look at it all I see is a blob of light.  You will need some sort of filter to really see anything.  I have 4 different filters but have been to lazy to try any of them.  The spikes are from your secondary spider, so no worries there 

What filter(s) are you using?

I usually use a variable polarising filter or the Baader neodymium, sometimes a #47* or #80A.
I read somewhere that the #47 is the 'recommended' filter for Venus. 

[Louis D]

I got a sharp view of Venus last year through an ST80 using a green filter.  I don't remember which one I was using (I have several), but it got rid of the red/blue smearing of both the achromatic lens and the atmosphere.  Mainly its phase became obvious.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Philip R said:

What filter(s) are you using?

I usually use a variable polarising filter or the Baader neodymium, sometimes a #47* or #80A.
I read somewhere that the #47 is the 'recommended' filter for Venus. 

None yet.  I really need to stop being lazy and see what works and what doesn't