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Community photo entitled The sickle of Venus in broad daylight by Roberto Ortu on 04/03/2025 at Cabras, Sardinia, Italy

The sickle of Venus in broad daylight

On 04/03/2025 01:22 pm by Roberto Ortu | Website | Cabras, Sardinia, Italy

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.

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