stupid venus tricks--inferior conjunction

Venus inferior conjunction
3/22/25 3:21 PM local
22:21 UTC
1% illuminated
8 degrees 25 minutes from the sun

when you see a really really bright star in the early evening it's probably venus.

and when you see a really bright star in the early morning it's probably...venus.  

every 19.5 months (approximately) venus laps earth, 
passing  between the earth and the sun, 
usually just missing the sun, 
switching from the evening to the morning star.  

this event is called the inferior conjunction of venus (with the sun), the superior conjunction occurring on the far side.  

the cool thing about the inferior conjunction is that the crescent is a thin as it can possibly get.  if the separation from the sun is small enough, the crescent may even go more than half way around the disk due to atmospheric refraction*

this gives rise to a stupid venus trick: 
observe (or photograph) venus in the middle of the day when it is as close to the sun as possible.  needless to say, this is DANGEROUS.  one glimpse at the sun through a high power telescope is likely to fry your retina, melt optics, or possibly explode telescopes.  so one needs to be very careful.  

the inferior conjunction before last was hampered by clouds. i caught a quick visual glimpse, but didn't have time for an image.  

last time it was hot, sunny and very windy.  my goto wasn't working well and a lens cap blew off while i was centering on the sun, causing an unplanned modification of my finder scope, leading me to abandon the attempt:

hole burnt in finder-scope lens cap
it's actually pretty handy

this time i caught it (above), though sadly, i did not catch a more circumferential crescent.  

venus transits (crossings directly across the face of the sun) are extremely rare, the last was in 2012, and next will be 2117.  and yes venus is retrograde when this occurs for you astrologers.  

i was fortunate enough to catch the rare 2012 transit with a brand new solar telescope:

venus transit 
6/5/2012

*i think

more on venus inferior conjunctions:

https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/superb-venus-inferior-conjunction/
https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/inferior-conjunction-venus-between-sun-and-earth/
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/venus-sprints-from-evening-star-to-morning-star/

image details:

ZWO ASI290MM

Baader 685 nm IR pass filter

celestron 11" Edge HD, no barlow

East Bluff, CA

2025-03-22 22:21.2 UTC

180 second capture

Shutter=0.069ms

Gain=306 (51%)

Histogramm=80%

FPS (avg.)=289

captured with firecapture

stacked in autostakkert

processed in registax and photoshop

used neither ADC nor barlow

processing was difficult as faint passing clouds led to variation in image brightness, making it difficult for stacking software to pick out the low contrast crescent against the very bright sky.  only one capture could be aligned. 

colorized background to natural sky in photoshop

A city falcon

 stepped out the door of my office after work and caught this:

falcon-9
Long Beach, CA
2/10/25 6:12 PM local

falcon-9 passing venus

falcon-9 about to run the light

city contrail

video excerpts

short video 

image details:
2/10/25

6:12-6:17 PM local

Long Beach, CA
Samsung galaxy S22 ultra
wide view:
f2.2 1/24 s 13 mm ISO 2500
variable on video

last weekend's moon-venus conjuction

many noticed the conjunction of the moon and bright venus after sunset last weekend.  turned my planetary rig to venus, but failed to detect any clouds.  

moon-venus
telescope-camera
saturn below, just above the tree line
2/2/2025 8:40 PM local

Conjunction close up:

moon venus conjunction
composite image to include earthshine
6:23-6:25 PM local

Venus Close up.  sadly failed to detect any surface cloud structure:

Venus UV filter
2025-02-02 01:57 UTC

Moon at same scale for no good reason:

Moon
2/2/25 6:23 PM

Imaging details:
2/2/2025
Eastbluff, CA

venus close up
ZWO ASI664MC
celestron 11" Edge HD, no barlow
East Bluff, CA
2025-02-02 01:57 UTC
180 second captures
Shutter=0.820ms
Gain=351 (58%)
Histogramm=88%
FPS (avg.)=866 !
captured with firecapture
stacked in autostakkert
processed in registax and photoshop

used neither ADC nor barlow for fear of blocking UV

venus moon conjunction
nikon D850
F-S DX NIKKOR 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR
1 minute video captures
stacked in autostakkert
processed in registax and photoshop
images used for composite:

Comet C2024 G3 Atlas survives

Comet C2024 G3 Atlas survived it's close pass with the sun, causing a stir in the astronomy community as comets surviving such a trip tend to be very bright.  some, even visible during daylight.  

While this one was in theory bright enough to see during daylight, it's trajectory kept its line of sight close to the sun and heading south.  so not a great target for northern viewers due to the sun's glare.  

On 1/15/25 I managed to catch it from the top of signal hill shortly after work.  It was visible in binoculars, slightly better than this image, but not visible naked eye:

C2024 G3 Atlas
1/15/2025 
approximately 5:41 PM local

Wider view:

C2024 G3 Atlas
1/15/2025

About 30 people were gathered on top of signal hill to catch the sunset (none for the comet).  As amateur astronomers are wont to do, I attempted to share my catch with my neighbors: handing off the binoculars to a couple next to me, I told them to look above the string of lights heading up the far hill...

after a few failed attempts, I showed them again and they found it, at least pretending to be pleased.  

In running through my images, I discovered the problem: there were intermittently more than one string of lights "going up the hill" and they were moving--massive arrays of lights working at the port of Long Beach.  

Comet C2024 G3 ATLAS
Activity at 
Port of Long Beach
1/15/2025 
5:41-5:47 PM

 

image details:

1/15/2025

Hill Top Park, Signal Hill.

comet first detected in binoculars at 5:41 PM local, approximately 36 minutes after sunset.

smoke from the LA fires darkening horizon.  

not visible naked eye.  

nikon D850

F-S DX NIKKOR 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR

1/25 sec @ f/5 ISO 400 195 mm

second jupiter of the year 2025-01-03 05:39.2 UTC

 still more good seeing, this time through light fog.  

The great red spot can be seen just peaking off the right side (better shown in the animation below).  There appears to be a long tail of turbulent clouds "following" the GRS in the brown southern equatorial belt.  

Animation:

2025 01 03 05:32.9-05:45.6 UTC

initial view for winjupos orientation caught detail on Ganymede:

Jupiter and Ganymede
2025-01-03 05:28.8 UTC

Imaging details:
exposures were 2-3 times longer than normal due to light to moderate fog

first jupiter of the year 2025-01-02 06:03.2 UTC

another night of good seeing, managed to get the barlow out for 2x magnification before the fog rolled in

first of the year
technically 1/2/25  06:03.2 UTC
but it was 10 PM on January first local

Jupiter
2025-01-02 05:57-06:10 UTC

Sadly, fog totally obscured mars later in the evening.  

imaging details:
above

the animation is composed of individual captures

couldn't resist pushing the processing a bit hard as the data was pretty good
difficulty tuning the eADC now with the barlow because the numbers are so damn small

will try installing the software

sadly the instructions call for arcane knowledge of driver installation.  

Happy New Year. Jupiter 12/31/24 3:48.6 UTC

happy new year all.  

the region between the 2 blue festoons was blazing away through medium to heavy fog.  

you can also see a recent storm in the southern equatorial belt (white patch to the right of the lower of the two thick tan bands)

Image details:
see annotations

best 4 of 9 capture attempts over a 10 minute period.  

the image was upsampled 3x, processed then reduced to 50%, so 1.5x from native.

conditions have been tough recently, either terrible seeing, clouds or heavy fog.  i've often noted the seeing can be excellent when it's foggy, but there's usually a very short window to image before total fog out, with the challenge of massive dew formation.  this one was captured through breaks in the fog with the dew heater on max.  The region was never totally clear and completely fogged at times.  had to feather the exposure time during captures to keep the exposure reasonable.  The lowest exposures were still 3x that of a clear night, going up to 10x. used virtualdub to delete overexposed frames (PIPP didn't work).