How Do You Observe Venus?

[Refractordude]

Venus is very low in the sky. Has anyone tried Venus when there is still some daylight? What filters do you use etc? Left click the images. Thanks all.

[Bigzmey]

Yes, it is fine to observe Venus during daylight. In fact the best views ever I have gotten were early evening when Venus was not even visible naked eye.

Blue filters like #38A and Baader 470 band pass work best for me.

Most of the time you can only resolve the phase, but when conditions are right you can resolve dark clouds (mostly near terminator).

[John Donne]

The twilight views of Venus in a clear sky are always a pleasure. The phase and bright colors are usually all I can resolve. I have not seen any identifiable detail. I am suspicious that the colors are atmospheric artifacts.
In the Illinois atmosphere I think there is a limit to what I might ever resolve, but what I can see is always a pleasure.

[Lariliss]

Venus should be in focus of our cameras, in the same way as it is in focus of multi-functional exploration missions planned for deep understanding!

Venus is difficult for observation for several reasons:
- atmospheric conditions; it is necessary that the atmosphere is ‘calm’, which is difficult near to horizon
- observing Venus is better during the day, when the contrast between the body planetary and sky is less, the planet's brightness is less.
If it is not about naked eye, polarized filters should be used.

[mikemarotta]

Right now, I can get Venus in the early twilight. With a new telescope I used Venus last night at 19:08 hours to align the finder. The planet is exceedingly bright. Last night I used a neutral density filter (NDF: "Moon" filter). In the past in the morning sky, I added a colored filter. It did not matter much which, at least not at that moment. One morning (13 October 2020) at 0728 AM, I used an orange filter. Venus was gibbous. (Earthsky.com said "75%" full.)

Latitude and longitude help. Here in Texas, I am in the middle of my time zone, almost 30 minutes on the dot. When we lived in Michigan we were technically in the Central zone, but most of the people live in the eastern side and so the state is in that time zone. For us, it got dark much later by the clock.

Here in Texas, I am at 30 North and right now, the ecliptic is very high in the sky. As they said in the old western movies, "The sun sets quickly in these parts." In Michigan we were halfway to the North Pole, truly 45N so that yields a lot of lingering twilight.