Venus resolution not so good.

[Grump Martian]

I observed Venus earlier. Well the view was very poor in both of my refractors  80mm and 100mm. No resolved shape to it's phase and yellowy colour. 

Is it me or have others experience this. It may be because it is still too low.

[Captain Scarlet]

I had a look about 10 days ago. Venus was simply terrible. Like a cross between a kaleidoscope and a three-colour Venn diagram all moving at once, funnily enough through your  former VX8 Orion Optics mirror. I hasten to add that mirror is just fine (I re-centre-spotted it, OO had had it placed miles out) … it was the seeing that low down, not so low down though, was appalling.

Cheers, Magnus

[Grump Martian]

A year or two back, Venus was a delight to observe. It must have been higher up and away from roof tops. Not sure which direction it is traveling this time. Wheather it will get higher. I will take a look at the planetarium.

[dweller25]

Venus is still climbing, so should get better.

I find it best to observe during twilight.

[Captain Scarlet]

When i observed it it was around 12-13 degs up at sunset. By May, it’ll be 35 degs up at that time and should be far better:

Edited February 3, 2023 by Captain Scarlet

[mikeDnight]

4 hours ago, Grump Martian said:

I observed Venus earlier. Well the view was very poor in both of my refractors  80mm and 100mm. No resolved shape to it's phase and yellowy colour. 

Is it me or have others experience this. It may be because it is still too low.

It's definitely not your scopes at fault. It sounds like you've been looking through a lot of turbulent atmosphere. Things will get better for observing Venus, and as David said, it might be better to observe it during twilight. A few years ago I decided to mark a pencil line on my drawtube indicating focus at infinity in my low power eyepiece; I did this while observing night time objects to ensure I had precise focus.  This was for the sole purpose of finding Venus in daylight and it works a treat. Daylight observing has its challenges too as the atmosphere can be turbulent, especially on a hot day (remember them?). You might find using coloured filters helps ease the rippling you might experience. Yellow is often thought good for Venus, or a Wrattan 80A (blue) which can aid in detecting bright regions at the cusps as well as along the limb and terminator. Once you see one or two bright areas the very subtle wispy cloud paterns can start to be recognised, especially if you are UV sensitive.

[stafford_stargazer]

I had a look briefly last night, the shape was well defined and looks pretty good to be fair although mega bright.

But it was clear and clean regarding the shape.

Last night I used a 90mm mak and a vixen nlv 12mm.

Edited February 27, 2023 by stafford_stargazer

[Mr Spock]

Venus relies on good seeing conditions. Observing in twilight or using a variable polarising filter can help reduce glare.

[Giles_B]

My biggest impediment is having a garden that faces west - the view south has trees and houses close by, so I have a very narrow window for observing Venus before it gets into the tree tops and yesterday was my first opportunity this year. I used my 80mm refractor with a Baader contrast booster and a variable polarising filter. Venus presented a well defined disk at roughly 3/4 phase, and with the contrast booster added there was just a hint of the cloud tops - but very little time for my eyes to acclimatise before it got too low

The positioning would be very awkward, but I'm tempted to mount my 10" Newtonian on the tripod to see how it performs in contrast on the next opportunity.

[StarDuke82]

I made a post about this the other day but I will put the attachment from it here in hopes that it will will be helpful in your observations in the coming months with lots more to expect from Venus on into August.ust