Venus and its clouds

The literature tells us that it’s UV filters through which the clouds of Venus are visible. A Calcium K line filter is en route to me, but till then I still fired up my balcony observatory: it’s weekend, I am at home, and Venus is visible, so let’s take a shot. Actually, I took five shots with different settings, and then tried my best to squeeze out some clouds, cause why not. Initially, I thought the results were artifacts, but they were consistent on all five shots, even though I adjusted the ADC in the meanwhile. I was hoping then that someone else was imaging Venus at around the same time as me, so if the features proved to be consistent, then it’s no artifact. And so it happened, xcsabesz from asztrofoto.hu imaged Venus, through a filter, and the two pictures overlap nicely.

Here’s the stack I started working with and a few from the stages. The confirmation came from xcsabesz’ picture.

2020.02.01. venus stages stako1

2020.02.01. venus stages stako2

2020.02.01. venus stages stako3

2020.02.01. venus stages stako4

2020.02.01. xcsabesz Vénusz