Venus again

So this time, I lugged my telescope upstairs onto the balcony and took some shots of Venus. At last I managed to get more than a rather blobby shaped blob. In fact you can clearly see it is showing phases like the moon here. All this while trying to supervise my son writing thank you letters and juggling USB cables. Taken and stacked using a webcam and registax, but taken over the roof of the house across the street - not the best for avoiding heat haze!

Anyway - at last a good shot of venus.

Venus and the moon

It was my sons birthday today (8) and he wanted to go out to Pizza Express. Just as I got home though, I could see Venus and the moon for the first time for days. So I got the camera and tripod out whilst the rest of the family were deciding what time to go out, and what to eat.
With my new USB extension cable, I could actually connect the computer up to the camera directly, and download results straight away, which for small objects means you can check on focus and stuff.
Actually it was light enough for the camera to autofocus on the moon initially, so I got it to do that, then flipped the lens to manual.
I took a whole range of exposures and zoom levels over the next 1/2 an hour or so at intervals, and sorted through them to pick out the ones I liked.


Venus and the moon, with a bit of earthlight showing the shadowy side.


Showing it in relation to everything else, and then a closeup of venus

which isn't very photogenic. I couldn't be bothered to set up the telescope and imager, as due to its location it means dragging the whole lot upstaris and onto the balcony, where the neighbours give me strange looks, and also the pizza was calling!