November/December 2024: The planets; The Little Sombrero Galaxy; Venus in the evening twilight.
19th December - the Solar System. Time to test out my newly cleaned telescope mirror and re-collimation. In truth it was too windy for planetary imaging (with my kit anyway), but with a biggish moon rising well before midnight I thought it was the best bet. Here's a pictorial summary: The planets are all imaged with the same magnification and are ordered in the way they currently appear in the sky. Starting on the right at 16:38, with Venus: When I initially set up the telescope, just before sunset, Venus looked steadier than I expected in the eyepiece. By the time I had attached two cameras (and made all other necessary connections and adjustments) it had drifted west and down so was sitting over the row of houses down the road in some really poor seeing. The image somewhat reflects this. Venus is really bright (magnitude -4.3). It's only 126 million km away at the moment and shrouded in a reflective covering of cloud. I...