20070602 Venus

I didn't target on Venus for very long, but since I got a Baader CaK which can be used on Venus, I always want to try it out again. Tonight, my daughters and my wife have gone to visit our friend, and thus I've some time. And the most important thing is, my baby daughter's (also my housemaid's) room has a window facing west, and Venus can be seen there, so I tried.

I setup my LXD55 and C5 there, since it's rather close to the window, I even couldn't use the counter weight shaft at first, and I found problem tracking nicely.

Eventually, I setup everything (very hard man!), and it's 32 degree Celcius inside, I'm all wet!



So, I plug in my DMK, and at f/10, I set to 0.75s at first but still couldn't show Venus nicely without very high gain. The final exposure I used was 2s, with medium gain. It's hard enough since I couldn't get good polar alignment with so limited time and space.


1932, CaK at f/10, 1s exposure, pretty high gain.


1938, CaK definitely used, exposure 1.25s, high gain.


1942, CaK used, exposure is 2s, medium gain.

Not a successful observation, and hard enough to make 2s exposure accurate at 2500mm+, also demanding on seeing and transparency, I doubt if I will try again, since it's pretty hard to get decent polar alignment in such a short time window.