The Planet Venus ... The 2nd Planet from the Sun

The Planet Venus
I took this picture using the 3.1" ED80T telescope about a half hour before sunset. On this date, Venus is quite low in the SW and from my backyard, there are many trees in that direction so I needed to grab it before it fell below them. With a clear view of the SW sky, Venus is that very bright looking star in the SW. During November and December and going into the new year, Venus will grow even brighter and climb higher in the sky. Noticed the "Gibbous" shape of it. Since its orbit is inside of earth's orbit, the planet displays phases, like our moon. Currently, Venus is waning in shape and in early 2000 will be a 'half Venus' in shape and then by springtime will be a bright cresent shape in view. Venus is covered with clouds, hence, there are no visible features to be seen.

Techy Stuff:
Telescope: Orion ED80T CF with a focal ratio of f/6
Mount: Celestron AVX
Camera: Altair-Hypercam 294 Pro TEC One-Shot-Color CMOS
Capture software: SharpCap Pro 3.1
Number of Frames in .avi file: 1,000
Stacking Program: AutoStakkert! 2.6.8
Used best 500 of the aligned 1,000 frames for stacking
Post Processed in Photoshop CC
Seeing Conditions: 6 (0-10, where 0 is total cloud cover)
Location: Backyard, Savannah GA

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