Venus Observed In Daylight!

I have always wanted to observe planet Venus in daylight for a long time instead of just before sunset but properly in a bright blue sky with the sun up. Not long ago i set up the meade 8" LX10 deluxe SCT in the back garden and using the finder i aimed the scope just one finder field above the sun then began a systematic sweep at 49X moving in horizontal paths working my way upwards to the NE of the sun which itself was well placed high above the western horizon. During set up i had focused on the moon so i wasnt wasting my time using a unfocused telescope and i would never know it until night fall. After a few minutes i found the plant no problem! at 20.17 UT which i admit to getting a real kick out of it. The planet was a glorious white pearl through the scope and its disk was nice and sharp. It was also an easy target in the finder scope. I shouted over to Conor to inform him of what i had seen and he shouted back to inform me that there was a nice sun dog low in the sky blocked from my view by garden trees. I relocated and saw the bright dog (multi coloured) as a bright patch sitting in a lovely white cloud strip and surrounded by blue sky. A nice session!

Martin,
Nice one on catching Venus during the day, although the way I catch it is abit different to the way you do it.
Like yourself, I find that the planet gives a much nicer image during the day, when its far from the horizon.

Since I use a goto, I place the solar filter on the scope and do a goto to the Sun, if it doesnt get it perfectly in the eyepiece, open the clutches and center it manually and then focus. Then do a goto to Venus and there you go.
I always make sure that I use a dew shield to block any off axis sun light from entering the tube.

I always have a healthy dose of paranoia when it comes to the Sun. :lol:

Nice one Martin, but if you're looking for a record for actually seeing Venus during the day, Dave Lillis has a shot of a Venusian sliver about a week before the Transit last June, taken during daylight! Dave, where is your picture of that? I couldn't find the post in a search here...

Seanie.

Seanie,
Its on the SAC site, but I will link it in here.
This is a sequence of images over the first half of last year, all to scale, I dont have an individual image of The "blue sky" pic of Venus lying around.
You can see how the differing seeing conditions affected the image quality.


homepage.eircom.net/~sac/graphics/inner/v_montage04.jpg

Fantastic!!!