The sickle of Venus in broad daylight

Image Title: The sickle of Venus in broad daylight

Copyright: Copyright: Roberto Ortu

Date image was taken: April 03, 2025

Location: Cabras, Sardinia, Italy

Data Acquisition Method: Personal Telescope Setup

If other selected:

Image Description and Details: The planet, after the inferior conjunction of 23 March, is located to the west of the Sun and is therefore already observable just before dawn, low on the eastern horizon. It is close to Mercury and the Sun so I tried to look for it just before it reached the maximum height on the horizon, then towards noon. To do this I first pointed our star using the Astrosolar filter then, since the two stars had practically the same declination, I moved the telescope a few degrees in right ascension, I then removed the filter and I added to the 25 mm eyepiece the Skyglow filter to increase contrast and find the planet more easily.
Unfortunately the seeing was bad and the turbulence was very well visible already at low magnifications.
Details:
Exposure: 0.162 ms
Gain: 15/22
Bad seeing
Good transparency
Location: Cabras, Sardinia, Italy
Date and time: April 3, 2025 11:22 UTC (13:22 local time)

Equipment Details: Celestron 114/910 Newton telescope
Mount Eq2 Sky-Watcher
Planetary camera QHY5L-II-C
Q-Barlow 2.25X Baader Planetarium
UV/IR cut filter
Astrosolar filter
Skyglow filter
Software: Firecapture 2.7, PIPP, Autostakkert!3, Registax 6, Astrosurface V3

Name: Roberto Ortu

Website or Facebook Profile: http://www.flickr.com/people/194524290@N05/