Jupiter, Venus and the Moon

This is a lovely photo taken by Birgitta in Sweden.

The Moon with Jupiter close by and Venus all together in the sky just after sunset. Here in Northern England the sky was cloudy so I couldn't see this sight.

Jupiter and Venus

On Monday 15th January I set up my Skywatcher 80ED Pro refractor in the garden and also the Philips Toucam Webcam with my laptop. The sky is clear and at about 5.30pm I can see both Venus and Jupiter together in the sky.

It took some time to set up the telescope because I needed three objects to align the SLT mount and I could only see two until it got a little darker. First I tried to take some images of Venus before it sank slowly in the South West. I used both the 2x Barlow and later the 3x Barlow along with the webcam to capture the images. I then captured around 2000 frames at 15 fps with the Philips Toucam.

After that I moved the telescope to track Jupiter and repeated the same thing again as with Venus.

With the image of Venus you can see some 'false colours' which is probably caused by the effects of using a refractor telescope. Maybe the Skywatcher 130m reflector would have been a better choice for imaging Venus as it is so bright.

Jupiter looks amazing, you can see the 'Great Red Spot' on the cloudbands at the top left and also a dark spot called a 'Barge' at the lower right in the cloud bands. These are storms in Jupiter's atmosphere.

Venus in Sweden and England

As the sun sets on a cold, clear night in Sweden the planet Venus shines like a beacon in the sky. Now the brightest object in the evening sky, even brighter than Jupiter. Birgitta in Sweden captured this image shortly after sunset...beautiful!




In England it is cold and frosty, the sky is clear giving a wonderful sunset. These images were taken here in Bolton of Venus just after sunset last night.



Really looking forward to watching 'Stargazer's Live' with Prof Brian Cox on BBC2 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm sure the sky will still be clear at the beginning of the week. Should be good. The programme is to be filmed at Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope in Cheshire.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/features/stargazing/