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12 June 2004 Just an image taken in full daylight short after the june 8th transit (that I havn't witnessed because of clouds in my location). Taken at 1 micron in the near IR. |
MORNING APPARITION, 2004 |
My main objective during that favourable morning apparition have been IR imaging of the planet. While many great details had been caught in UV during the evening apparition, the near-IR images where showing extremely pale albedo markings and that was quite interesting. After my moving to the Paris region in july, the images have all been taken with my 7" newtonian.
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12 June 2004 Just an image taken in full daylight short after the june 8th transit (that I havn't witnessed because of clouds in my location). Taken at 1 micron in the near IR. |
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24 and 29 July 2004 The crescent is still quite narrow and even the UV filter is not really able to make out albedo markings. Nothing is seen in IR. |
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1st, 8, 15 August 2004 The phase is increasing and the UV images are showing more and more details. These images are the only few escaped from a very hazy august month in northern France ! |
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31 August, 1st and 4 September 2004 The Açores high pressure grows nicely, and finally, from august 30th and in this situation the seeing becomes very good. The phase is also important enough to see many details in the venusian clouds. On sept. 1st, both 780 nm images show exactly the same details, in particular, the north polar region (bottom) looks darker than the rest of the disk. Contrast is extremely low and requires a heavy processing. On september 4th, a comparison between two IR transmissions is made (780 and 1000 nm), again the NPR is darker, but no real difference is seen between the two filters. |
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| 5, 7, 8, 9
September 2004 Winds turn to east and seeing becomes poor. If the resolution of these images is lower, the IR shots keeps on showing a darker NPR (and more than the NPR itself actually). |
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| 16 and 17
September 2004 Two excellent mornings. The most important thing to notice is the developpement of a greater "south polar cusp" in ultraviolet. This whitish cusp remains until october at least. The IR images are still interesting. On september 16th some little dark belts are shots in the NPR, identical on both 780 nm images. On the 17th, venusian clouds are still darker in the north. This albedo difference looks really to be the caracteristic of this apparition. But what's the explanation ? |
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22 October 2004 A last UV image under poor conditions with a mewlon 210. |
A few links
The worstening conditions from october didn't allowed me to take more data while the phase was getting larger. This is why I'd like to promote some excellent work by other amateurs that can be seen in the Venus page of the Japan ALPO. Apart of many beautiful UV images, I'd like to point the impressive IR work on Venus by Tiziano Olivetti.
