Daytime Planets And Stars

Hi All

I was just out having a look at some daytime planets @ 09.15 on the 24th of June 2009. The Sun was 34 deg's altitude at the time

Mercury. Was very interesting to look at in the scope, altitude was 44 deg's disc illumination is 62% apparent magnitude was around -0.37 angular size is 6.5 arcseconds

Venus. Was very easy to find with the scope. Altitude was 49 deg's disc illumination is now 59% apparent magnitude is -4.18, angular size is around 20 arcseconds.

Mars. It was fantastic to view this planet in the daytime I could see the different shades of colour from rusty red to the darker shades of colour. Altitude was 51 deg's disc illumination is now 93% apparent magnitude 1.13 angular size is around 4.9 arcseconds

I also had a look for M45 Pleiades they where not visible at all . On an up note Aldebaran was visible along with some of the brighter stars.

I would say to anyone with a goto scope to give this a try. All you do is go solar system align - select Venus - canter Venus is the eyepeace and away you go.

PLEASE remember do NOT look at the SUN with a telescope. At the time of writing this the angular separation of the Sun And Venus was 44deg's


Carl O'Beirnes,
J09 Balbriggan Observatory.

Yea, did that a couple of years ago. Amazing to see.
Saw Jupiter too and could clearly see the two main equatorial cloud bands.
Jack Newton told me before that the best time to split the double-double in Lyra was in the daytime!
Michael.

Thats great going there Carl, do you have a dew shield on the scope? I found it helps shield the correctorplate/mirror from the sun.
A few years back I did something similar, getting Jupiter in daytime gives a surprisingly good view, I found the Saturn was dimmer then I expected, never cought Mars in daytime, thats one to do.

Venus is a great one. On June 1st 2004, a week before it went across the sun I very nervously viewed Venus when it was only 10.75 degrees away from the sun, about a qaurter of what it is at the moment, I got up on a small ladder and looked down the tube of the scope to make sure there was nothing smoldering, melting or generally on fire, I was able to convince myself that the sun was just and I mean just missing the corrector as the dew shield blocked it, just!
The view was amazing, the thinest crescent you could imagine, here is a toucam image of it, I didnt use a barlow and this image is not cropped, it a full 640x480 frame.

farm3.static.flickr.com/2432/3653199951_a788e7780b_o.jpg

It was the first and last time I risk viewing so near the sun with the 12"LX200, I had visions of mirrors shattering, paint melting and eyepieces dissolving. :ohmy: :silly:
Sadly, that scope is out of action at the moment, but thats a whole other story altogether.

I do recall a few years ago at Jack Newton's observatory in Canada
being able to see the Double Double in Lyra at 11am in the morning'

I could only see one component while Dave Bell at the time could see both,
But really had to strain your eyes to see them, also looked at Vega and a few
more of the brighter stars, funny how easy to see them even through his finder
when you knew where to look.

Oh yes he had an old but reliable 16 inch LX200 in his roof top dome.

Ronan Newman

Jupiter is nice in the daytime.
Venus is cool but watch out for risk of sunburn.

That's about it for me.
What ever about the reliability of the gear ye are using,
the ETX 125?
Um... no thanks!
I'd rather keep my eyeballs thanks!

Out of curiosity Dave,
what is the closest in angular distance you can go
from the Sun with that scope before a Chernobyl event?
Not much more I'd say.

Very little, If I had a longer dew shield I could get closer, but with the setup it was right on the limit of exposing the inside of the OTA to direct sunlight, if I was adventurous or mad I suppose I could keep pushing it until the light was in the tube but still away from the mirror but you have then NO room for error, if the scopes RA slipped or somthing unforeseen happened you'd have no time to react and get your eye away from the eyepiece. Sayonara retinas!
I'm so solar paranoid it took me 6 years to muster up the courage to buy a white light solar filter for the scope.
Like Carl says, do not even attempt this unless you know exactly what you are doing!