The Vixen, The Birds, Bats and Badgers too

[Alan White]

Last night, I took advantage of the sky and spent some time again observing Venus and what a pleasurable time I had looking at clouds,
good Venusian clouds of course, not Earthly ones.
OK I could tease out a hint of detail if I am honest, but its improving.

The swap to using the EQ GP mount helped I am sure.
I also as in another thread used a 7x30 SW straight through finder, first time in years and boy was it a blast from the past and a natural enjoyable way to go.
Funny how absence makes things the fonder.

I then swung around some targets to try straight through finding and all went very well, so much so that I will stick with this for a while.
May be a rose coloured specs thing, time will tell.

Not much of an observing report as such, sorry, but sometimes its about the whole and not the actual targets.

While sitting at the scope, I observed our visiting Vixen come in to see what food was about.

I shot a short video too.
Of course just missed the Bat flying over by seconds.
After it got dark, had a visist from our Badgers and some foxes.

 

 

 

Edited May 16, 2023 by Alan White

[Whistlin Bob]

Really nice report.  I'ev often looked for clouds on Venus, but not really convinced I've ever seen them- do you use any filter for this?

[Alan White]

10 hours ago, Whistlin Bob said:

Really nice report.  I'ev often looked for clouds on Venus, but not really convinced I've ever seen them- do you use any filter for this?

Yes two, ND and a 80A blue filter, this darkens the view notably and helps show something.
It took a number of tries to tease out a hint of detail, nothing Jupiter like, but it suddenly stands out, 
when you see images it confirms that what you are seeing is real.

My Venus eyes are still nothing like @mikeDnight though, MIke has eyes of legendary status.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Alan White

[Whistlin Bob]

Brilliant! I'll give that a try... although my eyes are less legendary and more myopic!! 🤣

[Paz]

Nice report. Earlier this week I got some good views of Venus. I was wondering if I could see that one half of the lit side was slightly darker than the other and I could see on photos on the forum from the same day showed this but I haven't considered it a confirmed sighting of a feature as it was so tenuous.

I think with some more time observing hopefully my eyes/brain may tune into it and I'll be confident of an observation or be able to confirm a marginal observation from a photo.