Venus Near Superior Conjunction
Taken by Rich Nugent on August 30, 2019 @
Framingham, Massachusetts
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Camera Used: Apple iPhone 8 Plus
Exposure Time: 1/2667
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 20
Date Taken: 2019:08:30 14:39:08
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Details:
Why would you point an unfiltered telescope less than 5° from the Sun? To see Venus near superior conjunction, of course! This afternoon, Venus displayed a 9.7” disk at magnitude –3.9 however, the planet was only 4° 45’ from the Sun. To find it I used a white-light solar filter to pre-focus my 75mm Unitron telescope. A 26mm plössl eyepiece gave a magnification of 46x and a 1.1° true field of view.
A digital star atlas gave me the position of Venus relative to the Sun which allowed me to use my iPhone 8’s compass and tilt meter to offset in azimuth and altitude. Removing the filter revealed Venus. Extreme caution must be used when observing this close to the sun! As a reminder of the danger, solar glare flooded the view! In order to avoid a catastrophic encounter with the Sun, I use minimal sweeping with the telescope. The image I’ve included was taken with the iPhone hand-held over the eyepiece. Clearly I’m not an astro-imager but I do like to grab an occasional memory shot.
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