I give up

[Demonperformer]

Venus has proved to be a swine.

Part of the problem is that it is barely dark before it disappears behind a block of flats. Part of the problem is the air currents rising from the block of flats before it hides behind them. I have taken numerous avis with the neximager of this over the last month or so, and have finally given up. This is my best shot. Yes, I know it is awful, but I can't waste any more time on it. At least you can see that it has a phase.

Maybe in Nov/Dec when it will appear in the nice cool morning skies ...

[Ant]

It's not awful.

Venus is damn difficult to get. Get at it, some days will be better than others. I found that if it clears early evening, especially after a downpour (like yesterday) the seeing is MUCH better.

Venus will get steadily easier as it's angular distance from the sun increases.

Stick with it as you cannot tell when it'll be better than other.

Do not be disheartened by that image - I don't think it's that bad.

Also, try increasing the exposure slightly as well.

Cheers

Ant

[barkis]

I agree with Ant. Venus can be a pig to Image, for more reasons that the ones you've already mentioned. Although you are being a bit too critical of yourself. The Image is not brilliant, but it's nowhere near bad either. Be patient, you will succeed in time.

You Gotta keep going is all.

Ron.

[Llamanaut]

From my dark sky site with a 12" dob venus looks like its underwater in a fast flowing stream, any photo is a bonus imo... Stick at it John i think youre doing really well

[russ]

Yep, don't be down John. I looked at Venus last night, it was as Rich described. You did well to image it at all.

[jgs001]

I think that's a pretty good Venus, it's better than my attempts.

[Earl]

All i have maged to get is a White blob with a red top and blue underside, dancing all over the place, I must You tube it for a giggle.

[TheThing]

That's not bad at all Mr The DP! Don't be disheartened - after all, you've put in lots of hard work on it.

Keep trying, but that's a picture to be proud of!

[brianb]

Try in daylight - when it's at a reasonable altitude - 3pm with a screen to shade the scope from the sun. Venus is plenty bright enough to observe or image in full daylight, in fact it has far too much glare even in twilight ... by which time it will be low enough for the seeing to be awful, and those prismatic effects will be bad too unless you image "monochromatically".

[Clayton]

Try in daylight - when it's at a reasonable altitude - 3pm with a screen to shade the scope from the sun. Venus is plenty bright enough to observe or image in full daylight, in fact it has far too much glare even in twilight ... by which time it will be low enough for the seeing to be awful, and those prismatic effects will be bad too unless you image "monochromatically".

Ditto

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I got my best pics of Venus when it was still fairly light, and it was a great deal bigger see e.g. Stargazers Lounge - michael.h.f.wilkinson's Album: Planetary images. The red and blue edges can be removed using registax (RGB align, automatic estimation worked quite well for me). Conditions will get better.

[Demonperformer]

Thank you all for your kind comments - I'm still not sure they are deserved - and encouragement.

If I get any clear afternoon skies [is that a squadron of pigs I hear revving-up?] before it sinks too far back towards the sun, I will give that a go.

[Demonperformer]

OK, I got to the SCAG meeting nice and early to get Venus before it got dark without the building problem. TOTAL cloud cover. However, it started to clear and so set up and got this image. Venus was jumping around all over the place during the capture, so am quite pleased that Registax managed to stack 134/1200 frames. Taken at 1/10s rather than previous 1/50s.

An improvement I think ... .

Not that there isn't room for plenty more ...

[Psychobilly]

I would be inclined to try shorter expsoures next time to stop the center part saturating when you stack.

Peter...

[Demonperformer]

I actually took three avis, but this is the only one that produced a stackable result.

1/25 & 1/50 only produced stack sizes of 3 & 1 in registax.

[Psychobilly]

Thats wierd?

Did you try Centre of Gravity as the alignment method? (Page 9 of the registrax PDF manual)

[Ant]

Last time I imaged Venus (around 18 months ago), the exposure was around 1/600s.

Have a look at this thread

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-planetary/76631-nice-thin-venus-10-03-09-a.html

It'll give you an idea of the settings that I used.

Cheers

Ant

[brianb]

Last time I imaged Venus (around 18 months ago), the exposure was around 1/600s.

Yeah, I was getting 1/90 sec @ f/28 with a deep IR pass filter, and 1/30 sec @ f/28 with the UVenus filter (which doesn't transmit much, and the sensor has very poor sensitivity in the UV). I shot lots & lots of frames (5000 in IR, 10000 in UV) and stacked 10%.

Nobody finds this game easy ....

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

It does seem overexposed. Had the same trouble with my first shots. Later ones were much better. MANY short exposures is the key.

Cheers

Michael