20131020 Venus

Thank you indeed, since you're still reading this.

I've given up most of my hobby by selling most of my stuff to support my life as a full time pastor.  I will not give it up, however.

After a whole day of services, I woke up after an involuntary afternoon nap and to my surprise, I saw a bright object outside.  I verified it to be Venus with my Zopo mobile phone.

I pulled out my Ranger, set it up on my Mark-X, with rough polar alignment, tracking at 2400mm (480mm with 5x Powermate) is simple.  Insert the Lumenera Lu070M, centering and focusing is hard but not impossible.  Manual focusing with the aged helical is a hard exercise.  Centering the object with eyepiece and replace with the Lumenera is not easy either.

Anyway, I got it...  fast shutter plus high gain to freeze seeing:

Taken at 1838 (GMT+8), I enjoy capturing this featureless venus with its beautiful phase.  I've viewed through the 4mm eyepiece for sure.

BTW, I've sold my Canon 100-400mm a few days ago. I will miss it forever, just like my H-alpha filter set.