Venus is currently at its highest, but it is not very good either way. At least not from Oslo. But I figured I could use it to test my new camera. I set up my WO 98FLT with a Televue 4x powermate. Giving 2500mm focal length. The planet was literally dancing around in the disturbed air low on the horizon. I recorded 5 minutes, hoping that I would get at least some good frames.
Below is the result after stacking in AS2!. Not too bad. No details on the surface, but then again, Venus isn't known for its many features. Although I have seen others being able to extract some details in the clouds.
I also wanted to try out the capability for DSO. M42 was a natural target. Not very good from Oslo. Both because of the light pollution west of my position, but also because it never flies really high. But it is a forgiving target in that it is fearly bright and easy to capture. Since I hadn't bothered to polar alight the mount properly, I had to restrict the exposure to 10 seconds. I collected 60 frames and stacked them. Did a simple DDP and the image below was the result. Not terribly good, but for just 10 minutes exposure (bin 2x2), it was ok. (Click on image for a larger version).
