The Planet Venus – Digging out details from Earth’s Evil Twin!
In the telescope Venus appears as a “Bright” featureless planet except for its ever changing Crescent to Gibbous Phases. Venus is shrouded by a dense cloud layer of sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid that reflects most sunlight back into space, which creates a ‘greenhouse effect’ and hampers direct observation of the planet’s surface. So when I look through my telescope unlike Jupiter or Saturn, I can’t make out any features in the Cloud tops, until I tried an Ultra-Violet filter!
Venus’ clouds have markings that are light and dark in the ultraviolet range. Venus has a 800F + surface temp, so the UV stripes are likely from Volcanoes pumping a chemical high into the upper atmosphere, this chemical absorbs UV light making for dark and light patches on the Cloud tops.
Now I can see football stripes – cloud features on Venus. Seeing wasn’t the best but I got some details in the cloud tops! At its farthest, Venus lies 162 million miles (261 million kilometers) away. It makes its closest approach to Earth about once every 584 days, when Venus & Earth catch up to one another. On average, it is 25 million miles (40 million km) away at that point.
C8 Telescope(2000mm) 2x barlow, QHY5IIL CCD Camera, Astrodon UV filter, 114 frames stacked in Registax 6.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com
In the telescope Venus appears as a “Bright” featureless planet except for its ever changing Crescent to Gibbous Phases. Venus is shrouded by a dense cloud layer of sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid that reflects most sunlight back into space, which creates a ‘greenhouse effect’ and hampers direct observation of the planet’s surface. So when I look through my telescope unlike Jupiter or Saturn, I can’t make out any features in the Cloud tops, until I tried an Ultra-Violet filter!
Venus’ clouds have markings that are light and dark in the ultraviolet range. Venus has a 800F + surface temp, so the UV stripes are likely from Volcanoes pumping a chemical high into the upper atmosphere, this chemical absorbs UV light making for dark and light patches on the Cloud tops.
Now I can see football stripes – cloud features on Venus. Seeing wasn’t the best but I got some details in the cloud tops! At its farthest, Venus lies 162 million miles (261 million kilometers) away. It makes its closest approach to Earth about once every 584 days, when Venus & Earth catch up to one another. On average, it is 25 million miles (40 million km) away at that point.
C8 Telescope(2000mm) 2x barlow, QHY5IIL CCD Camera, Astrodon UV filter, 114 frames stacked in Registax 6.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com
