Green Venus & More

Date: 14 April 2007 U.T.
Time: 1:50 - 2:06 U.T.
Telescope: 30cm Newtonian
Magnification: 150x
Filters: Moon-SkyGlow & #58 Green (simultaneously)
Seeing: Fair to Poor
NELM: Bright Twilight
Temperature: +45 F (+7 C)


The above sketch gives a better idea of how Venus looks when using a Green filter (with or without an MSG filter). In the sketch, South is up and Preceding is to the left. Seeing conditions were a little worse than they have been for most of my earlier observations of this planet. The cause might be related to warmer daytime temperatures. Seeing conditions seemed to have improved later in the night when I targeted other objects.

Using words, the south polar region of the planet seemed to have a bit more white than elsewhere on the planet. A large dusky region was suspected in the mid-southern latitudes. A smaller dusky region was suspected in the mid-northern latitudes. The limb region away from the terminator appeared somewhat brighter than the rest of the planet.

The highlight of this night's observing were my later, deep-sky observations. Seeing conditions improved, and transparency proved to be very good some time after the Venus observation. Careful observations and sketches were made of NGC 3242 (The Ghost of Jupiter) at 250x and NGC 4565 (The Needle Galaxy) at 120x. Both objects were nicely shown by the 30cm Newtonian.

By the time I had completed the above observations (6:07 U.T.) with a break between each, I had grown rather fatigued. At one point I had decided to attempt to stay awake until Jupiter reached my south meridian; but fatigue ended up the winner of that battle and I eventually called it a night.