Venus & M45 April

@Aubrey,
Getting set up now, not much chance of a polar alignment in daylight though, so I'm not sure how good tracking will be for photographs. Another worrying thing will be exposure times in a brightish sky. The position of Venus at the moment is shown in the pic below:

I have my Camera at the ready folks, clouds are moving fast though.....

Keith..

Hi Keith 

Very many thanks for that link...That's really useful. 

The sky is superb at the moment setting-up my scope now, and about to have a quick look with my 10 X 50s.

Here's to a great night everyone! 

Darren. 

Just enough clear sky in south Limerick. I agree Paul, there is something aesthetically pleasing about tonight's geometry -



Finbarr.

Result ! Beautiful View even under strong moonlight

Keith..

Wow, that was one of the most beautiful sights in all my years in astronomy. Here's a pic while it was still twilight, I liked the blue skies. Taken at 21:10, ISO200, F4.5, 30sec single frame, 200mm lens on a Canon EOS 7D Mk2, cropped. Tracking with Skywatcher SA.

Venus in M45 Twilight  

Click on the image for more detail.

A shot from a little later 21:24

Venus in M45  

I don't like the diffraction spikes in this one. Stopped down to F8 the spikes are not as clean as the shot above at F4.5. Not much I can do about it though..........