The planet Venus underwent its Greatest Eastern Elongation this year, 29th October, during its evening apparition. The following month, Venus reached its maximum altitude in the evening sky, appearing highest, just after sunset, above the western horizon. During this time the planet would appear Crescent giving amateur astronomers and astronomers, a beautiful view of the Crescent Venus.
Greatest Elongation is the time when an inner planet (Venus and Mercury) appears farthest from the Sun, when viewed from Earth. The point of greatest angular separation from the Sun, of these planets towards the East of Sun, is the Greatest Eastern Elongation and likewise for the West.
During this time, the planet will appear to half lit by the Sun and as the planets proceed on their orbits, around the Sun, this lit surface, appears to reduce with the darker region increasing in area, with each passing day. This is also the time when the planet comes closer to the earth with each passing day, during the Eastern Elongation and moves away from the Earth, during western elongation.
As Venus approaches Earth, preparing to pass between our planet and the Sun, Venus appears Crescent (like the Moon) and bigger, with each passing day.
On this path, there occurs a few days when the surface of Venus is just lit enough, such that the distance of the planet and therefore the size, in combination with the light reflected by the planet, makes it sparkle in the evening sky. This phase occurred for Venus during the previous weeks and we are sure a lot of astronomy club, organized stargazing / sky-watch programs to view Venus.
This was a great time to organize such a program because of the presence of planets Jupiter and Saturn who were also following Venus, across the sky.
PAAC was also part of this crowd as we organized several opportunities to view Venus.
For PAAC Students
First we organized a sky-watch program for the students of Poornaprajna College exclusively, to view the Crescent Planet on campus, on 6th Dec 2021.
Students viewed the Crescent Venus, the ringed planet and the gas giant with its 4 Galillean moons.
Students were also introduced to the various constellations visible during this time. Cassiopeia, Pegasus , Perseus and Andromeda could be easily spotted.
For GDC Students
Govinda Dasa College, Surathkal invited PAAC to organize a sky-watch in their campus to view the planets and PAAC obliged.
The students of the college were shown the Crescent Venus along with the other two planets and the crescent Moon and its craters.
For DAMP Students
Students from the Department of Atomic and Molecular Physics, Manipal University, also requested to organize a sky-watch and their students visited Poornaprajna College where students and members of PAAC introduced them to the various types of telescopes, showed them the planets and constellations visible.
Astrophotography
In between these days, on day, the students of PAAC, hooked the 8-inch Dobsonian telescope with the ZWO ASI planetary camera and obtained about 6000 frames of the planet which was then stacked and processed by Vibhav Mangalore for us. And he did a wonderful job and the image obtained was simply mesmerizing. Take a Look!
Window of Opportunity
With a year full of rains, cloudy evenings and covid-scare, we were blessed with crystal clear night skies for the past week, and at the time of writing this post, we realized that the clouds were back and it was just a window of Opportunity that presented itself before us, which was utilized thoroughly by PAAC.
Missed Opportunity
PAAC wished to organize a similar event for members of the public but couldn’t do so because of the recent guidelines released by the government to control the spread of Covid-19. We’ll organize a sky-watch for you all soon.
Until then… Clear Skies!
