Venus and Mercury in broad

daylight near the zenith

September 29, 2013

Uploaded 9/30/13

 Here are a few shots taken in the daytime, with the two planets within 45 degrees of the Sun on a somewhat hazy summer day.
 

 The setup consisted of my 12.5" scope with the front end extended by a huge light shield to block the direct sun from striking the inside of the tube and ruining contrast.

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 Venus with the 2.5x Televue powermate and the DMK51 camera. This is an RGB color image taken through three colored filters and combined. Seeing was very poor.

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 With the DSLR in broad daylight the planet Venus against the blue daytime sky at prime focus, 1500mm f/5.

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 Mercury is there too, just to the right of center. You can see it better in this full screen image.

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Instrument: 12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian Platform: Astrophysics 1200 QMD CCD Camera: DMK51 DSLR: Hutech Modified Canon Xti Location: Payson, Arizona Elevation: 5150 ft. Sky: Seeing FMHW = 10 arcsec, Transparency 5/10 Outside Temperature: 75F Processing: Registax, Photoshop