Daytime Planets

Today, with the fine weather, I decided to try and find a few planets with my scope. First though, I pointed it at the sun (with my thousand oaks filter) and saw a phenomenal amount of sunspots. Take a look at the latest SOHO picture to get an idea of what can be seen:


After I had synced my scope on the sun, I then tried aiming it at Venus. After a short while, I found it. It's so unusual to see an object like Venus against a blue sky! Venus reminded me of a miniture Moon; it appeared greyish in colour and had a phase of approx 90%. Only apparent difference was it's tiny size.

About 7pm and with the Sun approx 20degrees above the horizon, I then tried looking for Jupiter. After about 10mins looking, I only just about found it. It was significantly fainter than Venus and I could faintly see the two equatorial belts. I wasn't able to see any Galelian moons unfortunately. You'd need a significantly bigger scope for that.

I also tried looking for Saturn but couldn't see it. I also gave the Moon a go but it's only 0.13% illuminated and so I had no success.

Michael,
Thats a nice sharp image, I didnt realise that the sun was currently that active.
Seeing Venus against a bright blue sky is nice alright.

Thats a nice sharp image

It'd want to be. It came from the SOHO satellite!

Seriously, it does feel very strange looking at planets during the day. Can't wait to try and get Mars and Saturn some day.

:lol: :lol:
I was just thinking you have the LX90 working really well

Mike,
have you photos of the other planets you saw yesterday?

Nah, didn't bother. Twas hard enough trying to find them. Besides, to catch anything decent, I'd need the webcam, and for that i would need a laptop which I don't have. Can't wait to move to the new house, build an observatory and start into the astrophotography properly again.