VENUS AT INFERIOR CONJUNCTION:
Today, Jan. 11th, Venus is at inferior conjunction. That means it is passing almost directly between Earth and the sun. With its nightside facing Earth (almost perfectly), Venus looks like an incredibly slender crescent. This morning in Targoviste, Romania, amateur astronomer Maximilian Teodorescu photographed Venus only 5 degrees from the sun
“Taking extreme care not to point any unfiltered optics at the sun, I started to look for Venus through my 11-inch Celestron telescope,” says Teodorescu. “The thin but very large crescent suddenly appeared into the field of view. It was surreal to watch the boiling atmospheric arc of the planet just above the sun in plain day. My wife immortalized the moment by taking a panoramic view from our clear-sky location.”
Observing Venus through a telescope can be dangerous. Even a quick inadvertent glimpse of magnified light from the nearby sun can cause serious eye damage. Anthony J. Cook of the Griffith Observatory has some advice for observers: “I have observed Venus at conjunction, but only from within the shadow of a building, or by adding a mask to the front end of the telescope to fully shadow the optics from direct sunlight. This is tricky with a refractor or a catadioptric, because the optics start at the front end of the tube. Here at Griffith Observatory, I rotate the telescope dome to make sure the lens of the telescope is shaded from direct sunlight, even through it means that the lens will be partially blocked when aimed at Venus. With our Newtonian telescope, I add a curved cardboard mask at the front end of the tube to shadow the primary mirror.”
Around the world, many people are applying these techniques to photograph Venus as it passes by the sun. Browse the gallery to see their amazing results
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