Hi all,

This is my first Venus shot over this morning apparition.
I grabbed Venus when the Sun already raised over the horizon, so the
contrast wasn’t that great.

Hope better result to come.

Questa è la mia prima ripresa di Venere durante l’attuale elongazione
occidentale.
Ripresa effettuata col Sole ormai sorto da un pezzo, quindi con poco
contrasto. Seeing abbastanza discreto.

Hi all,

This is indeed my last Venus image!
By that day on, weather here definitively moved to bad.

The cloudy planet is getting bigger but thinner, so any cloud detail is
getting harder and harder.

Hope to get more images nonetheless as soon weather will improve.
Thank you for your attention.

Hi all,

Here my last Venus image:

More to follow.

Hi all,

Here’s my first attempt in using the Baader Ca filter (thanks for the loan!) to detect Venus clouds.
This filter (395nm, just 8nm bandpass) delivered a sharper and steadier live image than any else UV pass filter I used so far!
Same shutter and gain levels as before.
The contrast was a tad lower but this is can be fairly compensated by a larger UM or wavelet.

Notice that bright cloud on the top-left corner which recalls the McNaught comet in a some way!
Seeing was nice, transparency good. The Sun was still nicely high above the horizon when shooting.

Hi all,

Find here a new image of the 2nd most cloudy planet of the Solar System.
Seeing and transparency fair despite the late evening capture.
Clouded out a while after when I was looking at a nice Saturn!

Hi guys,

For the first time in years I was able to capture a planet over 4
consecutive evenings!
This allowed me a complete mapping of Venus because of its 4 days high
clouds spinning period.

On April 19th I captured venusian clouds among terrestrial clouds which
did let me have a thin minute of clear sky only. Seeing was fairly good
nonetheless, hence my frustration.

On April 20 and 21 I had clear sky but poor seeing.

On April 22nd I decided to move my telescope over a beach (!) to prevent
convective heat from the ground. Venus was well placed over the
relatively cool sea surface (18°) and I could enjoy a breathtaking image
at the eyepiece!
The 2 bright cusps were easy and prominent without any filter and I
could grab my best Venus shot ever.
Need an house in front of the sea…

Hi all,

After a too much long dry spell, I could get my first planetary images
of the 2007 during the last Easter period.

Venus was grabbed on the dusk when the Sun was close to the horizon and
I used the Baader U filter with an additional IR blocking filter to
safely prevent any IR leakage.
Fortunately, I could use a fast exposure because of the complete lack of
AR coated glasses to be crossed by the UV radiation.
On the other side, the scope wasn’t collimated at all in both the 2
sessions because no star was visible before of imaging Venus and I also
had to bring it on my car slowly running on destroied mountain roads!
In fact, both the 2 images were grabbed in the northern Appennines at
1300 (Apr. 9th) and 1500 (April 7th) meter altitude were the
transparency was excellent and the seeing sometime was also nice.

Venus here is showing some dark equatorial streak and bright cloud belts
at mid to high latitudes:

The Venus show has just started…