Venus 26th July at 8:55pm

Nice image Frank. It shows the phase very well indeed.
What Carl is saying is to image during daylight. It should be easy to locate with your etx and anyway it's visible to the naked eye during the day. By leaving it till early evening you're cutting down on (some) of the seeing effects associated with the heat of mid afternoon (when Venus is Highest at the mo).
My god have you not installed Schmidt corrector plates on ALL of your windows, shame on you!

Dave Gradwell

Much sharper alright. Try bumping the levels way up to check for the ashen light or the cresent running around the planet - lets know if you get anything.

DaveG

I reckon they are optical rather than actual.
I think it's just that your eye 'wants' to see a circle.
The brain then just 'joins the dots'.

Nice one Frank, much sharper.