At about 2 pm local time my sky had cleared well enough to make an attempt to track planet Venus down during this early afternoon. The low humidity high pressure atmosphere that was overhead made this observation possible. Venus was about 13Â° North and 3Â° to the East of the sun and I knew I could safely block the sun from reaching my eyepiece using a large pine tree to block out the solar disk. Venus at the time of the observation was about -4th magnitude and 2.5 % illuminated. The disk of the planet was about 59â€ of arc in diameter and only 0.29 AU (27 million miles) from earth.
4.25"f/6 Newtonian 6mm eyepiece 107x
For this sketch I used: blue construction paper, 11"x 9", a white Conte' pastel crayon and a blending stump, for templating the planet as a circle I used a lens cap. Brightness and contrast were slightly increased (+2) after scanning.
Date: 3-21-2009 7:00-7:15 UT
clear skies, few clouds
Large numbers of greater sandhill cranes flying north