Venus, Critter Visitors
Posted: 3 November 2013
Clouds came in Saturday, 2 November 2013, but as sunset approached, most of the clouds were gone. Cassiopeia Observatory was opened at 1722 MST, 81°F, for a planned short session. Viewed Venus, 83X, at 1727 MST. A slightly less than half-phase was visible. Sunset occurred at 1732 MST. I switched to 364X and did some handheld afocal slo-mo videos using the iPhone 5s. I added a moon filter to reduce the brightness of Venus. However, the iPhone still overexposed the planet, as seen in this cropped image:
But visually, the moon filter really helped at 364X.
I then noticed that several critters were coming by the observatory for a visit (or more exactly, dinner):
I then resumed imaging Venus. This image more accurately shows its visual appearance at 364X + moon filter. It was taken using afocal photography with the D7000 DSLR handheld over the eyepiece, 1/125sec, ISO 3200, 66mm.
The observatory was closed at 1802 MST, 72°F.
After I stepped onto the observatory patio, I took this photograph of Venus above some clouds in the southwestern sky, f/4.2, 1/60sec, ISO 1600, 34mm:
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