June 9th, 2023, 9:23 p.m. local time
On a clear late Spring evening in June, Venus shown brightly in the West. I had been wanting to get my large telescope out of at least one photo shoot of Venus this go-around, and this Friday evening was ideal. Venus is still high enough after Sunset that I had little difficult positioning my Dobsonian, though I had to take the telescopic finder off, as I normally do, to offset the weight of the camera.
I took six video sets, tweaking the focus and exposure throughout. All six final images are nearly the same, though I opted in the end for a lower-exposure composite to showcase in this article. As with all of my Venus images, the silhouette is the most important to capture, since only the most refined of astrophotography equipment can capture Venus’s cloud formations.
Summary of my equipment, settings, and software used:
- Telescope: Dobsonian reflector 254mm / 10″ (homemade)
- Camera: Canon EOS Rebel SL3
- Barlow: TeleVue Powermate x5 1.25″
- Filter: Baader Neodymium 1.25″
- Canon T ring and adapter
- Relevant camera settings:
- ISO 100
- Exposure: 160
- HD video at 60fps
- Created from three videos of about 25–30s each, best 35% of frames (via Autostakkert)
- Software for post-processing:
- PIPP
- Autostakkert
- Registax 6
- PaintShop Pro for minor touch-ups
Thank you for taking the time to read my article.
