Venus, 0.1% Illuminated, with No Telescope
Taken by Helio de Carvalho Vital on June 1, 2020 @
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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Camera Used: NIKON COOLPIX P900
Exposure Time: 10/2000
Aperture: f/8.0
ISO: 100
Date Taken: 2020:06:01 17:06:05
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Details:
I have been monitoring Venus for the past few days using only my camera. Capturing it yesterday was a challenge as I barely got to see it for a few seconds only. So I concluded today it would be much tougher. Then by using the trees that compounded the silhouette of a hill 4 km away as reference points, I tried to pinpoint where it would set on the hill today by compensating for differences in azimuth and time. This time I used the maximum magnification of the camera and took several photos during 5 minutes centered at the interval I had calculated, covering the area on top of the hill that I previously estimated. I did not even see Venus on the LCD monitor of the camera at all, but I knew it should be there. Then I greatly enhanced the contrast of the photos (using PhotoScape freeware) and analyzed them carefully. Amazingly, the extremely thin crescent of Venus had been captured very poorly in 2 photos! Its position matched, as well as its shape, size and path. Using only a Nikon CoolPix at manual mode with no telescope attached, I had photographed Venus only 0.1% illuminated and 3.1° away from the Sun as their altitudes were 3.3° and 1.4°, respectively. The planet can be seen near the center of the two first images (resulting from the same photo processed in different manners) and it is barely seen crossing the right border of the second photo (3rd image) taken 12 seconds earlier. Also included is a photo recorded by Soho`s Lasco C3 camera at the same time my photos were taken (17:06 UTC-3h) in order to illustrate how deeply inside the Sun`s glare Venus was.
Photographer's website:
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