Venus 'Ashen Light' seen!

Speaking of Venus - On Saturday night (May 8th 2004) at about 9.30pm local time (2030Hrs UT)I could have sworn - in fact I did see the unusual sight of 'Ashen Light' - the sight of the unlit side of Venus.
I was using my 8" SCT at Mag x100 when I easily saw what I could only describe as a 40 arcsecond size disk/ball hanging in my field of view. The 'Darkside' of Venus was clearly visible as a dark brown coloured sphere, directly visible, not even hard to trace. Keith..

Hi Keith,

Congratulations! I've never seen the ashen light myself. Fred Price discusses this phonomenon in his book The Planet Observer's Handbook, describing the colour variously reported as grey or reddish but that Webb saw it as a brownish colour in 1878. Also, he says English planetary observer, Richard Baum, has observed the ashen light over a period of 35 years, describing it as coppery, deep purple, olive or even rusty brown. So, your observation of a dark brown coloured sphere fits in with previously reported colour.

Gordon

Merging this with the posters other message in another thread to keep the transit thread clean - albertw

Venus, ashen light as a faint glow occasionally observed on the dark side of Venus, was first reported by Riccioli in 1643.

Ever since then, it seems that nearly all natural forms of such illumination have been ruled out, at least for the past 300 years and counting there's not been a viable alternative to those illuminations being other than artificially generated.

Utilizing a band-pass filter of 400~450 nm should offer the most bang for the buck/euro, although a more specific filter should only improve upon those observations, and of a recording whatever might be encoded within that spectrum of photons might be even a little more interesting, to say the least.

However folks, expecting any of these pretentious astronomy types to place their warm and fuzzy stamp of approval upon the notion that Venus could be harboring other life NOT as we know it, apparently this isn't an option, though of having humanity wasting more decades and trillions of dollars is worth every penny, especially if those pennies are going into their institution or better yet into their own pocket, meanwhile the polluting of mother Earth and of the pillaging for energy resources to a fairlywell, along with all of the collateral carnage, is just fine and dandy.

God forbid that we should consider upon the obvious prospects or perhaps fact of the matter that Venus isn't quite so darn hot and nasty, nor insisting that of sufficiently smart folks couldn't have managed to have coexisted in spite of our arrogance, greed and utter stupidity.

Ashen lights of Venus have been simply too well noticed, and of various radio astronomy and by way of numerous other instruments (other than photon detections) have not established upon any other natural source for their existence. That's sort of duh-101 for those illuminations being of pure photons which thereby obviously had to be created from the surface or perhaps from aboard some high flying rigid airship cruising quite safely and calm just below those nasty clouds.

The rigid airship notion as for providing a suitable platform by which to operate at perhaps 25+km shouldn't be ruled out. Even the notion of such rigid airships being capable of their cruising above them relatively cool nighttime clouds isn't outside the box of accepted physics-101.

BTW; I have another page or two to offer, but I do need and would appreciate your input:
guthvenus.tripod.com/earthshine-moonshine.htm
guthvenus.tripod.com/illumination-spots.htm
guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-hot-spots.htm

Sorry if you're a devout pro-NASA or more unfortunately a pro-Apollo sport, like I was as of prior to more than three years ago, thoroughly snookered to the hilt and all, and then some.
_________________
Regards, Brad Guth 1-253-8576061
guthvenus.tripod.com/index.htm

Well guess what Dave Lillis and other nice folks, that "very dark purple hue" is perhaps the 425 nm spectrum that's best suited at taking advantage of the opacity of them acidic clouds, and that's a fact. At least of anything below 450 nm isn't all that much in competition with earthshine.

Utilizing a band-pass filter of 400~450 nm should offer the most bang for the buck/euro, although a more specific filter should only improve upon those observations, and of a recording whatever might be encoded within that spectrum of photons might be even a little more interesting, to say the least.

BTW; I have another page or two to offer:
guthvenus.tripod.com/earthshine-moonshine.htm
guthvenus.tripod.com/illumination-spots.htm
guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-hot-spots.htm

Some interesting sites there, but I've yet to see a pic with definitive proof.

I went back to my pics and did all kinds of wonderful photoshop manipulation such as playing arounds with histograms/levels/filters/brightness/contract etc and checking the colour "number" with the surrounding background and could not get any variation in the area where the dark side of the globe would be, i.e. I wasnt able to find anything, and like I said earlier, the exposure was very low in those shots.

BUT, its going to be clear on Saturday/Sunday nights (according to the weather forecasts) and this time I'll see if I can hunt it down with the webcam.
Is this comparible to searching for the Martian Canals during the Mars opposition lat year ??? maybe.

BUT, its going to be clear on Saturday/Sunday nights (according to the weather forecasts) and this time I'll see if I can hunt it down with the webcam.
Is this comparible to searching for the Martian Canals during the Mars opposition lat year ??? maybe.

There are amateurs going to try taking spectroscopic measurements of venus during the transit, something should get absorbed in the clouds, and those lines should be detectable. Its a touch project, and not one that I have the equipment for but a challenge if you are interested.

Cheers,
~Al

Some interesting sites there, but I've yet to see a pic with definitive proof.

Check out the last image on www.vt-2004.org/photos/vt-photos-page8.html

Its in IR, but clearly shows the night side.

Cheers,
~Al