Daytime astronomy: imaging Mercury and Venus

Daytime astronomy: Observing and imaging the planets Mercury and Venus in daylight. This video presents a observing episode (a video observing report if you will) with a Meade RCX400 14" telescope, detailing target location and acquisition, initial video imaging with DFK camera and final processing to still images with Registax.

Presented by Robert J Dalby FRAS

Produced by The Astronomy and Nature Centre

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• RCX400
• Registax
• Mercury
• Venus
• daytime
• astronomy

[ParaglidingManiac]

I would like it so much, if anybody would jsut show me how to find Venus or/and Mercury without a computerized telescope!

[AstronomyAndNatureTV]

@ParaglidingManiac Hi - think about this way: both planets are within the orbit of the Earth - that's to say they are closer to the Sun than we are. So, wherever the Sun appears to be both planets are going to spend a fair bit of time a little to the East or West of the Sun. So a good strategy to pick up Venus would be to look for a very bright 'star' low in the West after sunset or in the East after sunrise. Same for Mercury but it's a lot dimmer and closer to the Sun so harder to see. A&NC

[TheKillMessenger]

Thank you so much for this video

I am really interested in finding some high resolution images of Venus as seen through a telescope.

Anyone know where I can get some?

[notubeplease]

well done! i saw Venus once, in broad daylight, but never got to image it like that. actually, i never imaged anything else but the sun, during daytime. quite a challenge there, especially if you don't have a dome - i almost always come back all sweat after a "sun-bath" :))

[manimou1]

Excellent video!! I enjoy daytime astronomy very much and have obsreved Jupiter and Venus many times in broad daylight. Can you please tell me how to locate mercury without a GoTo mechanism? Have the Celestron sky scout and binoculars but it has still eluded me. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[bobblackfly]

Thank you, I really enjoyed your presentation.

I wonder if you might consider using your expertise to do a short movie on drift alignment.

I know there are already a few already but the audio is so terrible that I cannot make out a word they`re saying.

I think the two hardest things in astronomy are collimating and drift aligning.

Anyway, thanks again, bob

[emanitudism]

I didn't know this was possible.

Found it fascinating to observe the process, and the results.

Thank you.

[Zorack10]

That is a sweet RCX 14" I have a LX200 10" Classic,and I bow to you for having a superior telescope(I need a larger size scope!)

[truemartian1]

I like what you are doing with day time astrophotography, I am planing on buying an observatory so Ican have a similare set up to yours, and by the way I am still enjoying my 12inch Skywatcher that I purchased from you last year.