Venus is one of those planets I haven't focused too much attention on because it usually sets before I can get all my gear ready to go. Now that I have the PoleMaster that should make things go quicker but it's still a race against the planet setting right behind my neighbors house.
I was hoping that I would get some chances to practice photographing the planet this year (2024) but to my surprise or lack of knowledge, the planet never appeared in the sky! I did check my planetarium software and it seems like I'll have some chances to take some photos in February of 2025 but it seems like it will be very low and might not clear the neighbors roof. I may need to change the location of the scope.
Here are my meager attempts so far of capturing the planet. Now that I have some more skills on how to focus on planets and post process them on the PC, I am eager to get started, although from what I've seen of other amateur photos, my results might not be too different.
My main goal next year (2025) will be to get a much sharper disc.
My first and second attempts at Venus are found here taken with my then newly acquired 8" SCT and my Canon T5i camera. There isn't much to say about these shots, I am just happy to have them.
Venus - April 04, 2023
Venus - April 29, 2023
Here I finally got my ZWO 294 and got much better control of the image, but still too fuzzy for my liking. I am not sure if I can get anything sharper than this but I mistakenly was using my Bahtinov mask to focus on a star first and then slewing over to the plant but learning about focusing on Jupiter I have learned that that's not the correct way to go about focusing on a planet for photography.
Venus - March 07, 2023
