The Planet Venus
(Click on Picture for larger view)


This is the planet Venus as it is nearing inferior conjunction (June 3 when it will be directly between the earth and the sun) and is now appearing as a very thin and large crescent planet. Venus is that very bright object in the WNW evening sky but will soon fade out of view in the next two weeks. The evening 'star' is currently 29.2 million miles from earth. A year from now it will be roughly 157 million miles away on the other side of the sun. I had to take this picture at 4 pm ... in the daylight ... as too many trees obscure my view after sunset

I took this image in the afternoon shortly before 4 pm. The image is composed of the best 50 frames of a 1,000 frame video file..

That 'Techy' Stuf
Telescope: 11" Celestron Edge HD at f/7
Mount: Celestron CGX
Mount setting and alignment via Celestron PWI software
Rig to Indoor Computer Connection: USB 2 196 feet Extender via cat 6 cable
System Alignment: Celestron StarSense
Camera: Altair Hypercam 294c Pro TEC
Binning: 1x1
Capture Software: SharpCap Pro
Stacked in AutoStakkert! v3.0.14 (x64)
Post processing in Photoshop CC
Focus Controller: Celestron Auto Focuser
Temperature: 82°F (27.8°C)
Date: Mary 21, 2020
Location: My Backyard, Savannah, GA


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