It's still there- Venus with dark shadow or storm on May 3, 2012

When you view a small bright object out of focus in a digital camera, the image gets distorted by the shutter and diaphragm mechanism in the camera. You got a distorted full circle in an object that was really a crescent, so you are seeing the entire open diaphram with the crescent mophed into the image along with some artifacts that are produced by the shutter.

reply to post by charlyv


makes sense.....looking forward to someone getting a good telescope shot tonight to figure this out once and for all!!!

Originally posted by BadBoYeed
a crescent shaped shadow on venus, apparently
It started on April 26 around 9:20 pm and has had the shadow since then.

anyone have a good telescope?

I looked at it about 3 weeks ago and saw the shadow. Matter of fact, I looked at it about 6 years ago and saw the crescent shaped shadow. I thought it was dark on one side because of the way the sun was shining on it....kind of how the moon looks when the sun is shining on one side of it and the other side is shadowed.

EDIT: Nevermind, that's different than what I'm talking about.

Double.

Out of focus is out of focus. And if Venus is a sliver right now, what is that object? It is on the west coast horizon in the evening, lower to the horizon at dark. Is that not venus? I just read three pages of what it is not...

Originally posted by intrptr
Out of focus is out of focus. And if Venus is a sliver right now, what is that object? It is on the west coast horizon in the evening, lower to the horizon at dark. Is that not venus? I just read three pages of what it is not...

Venus isn't a sliver right now, it's a 1/4 crescent. It's also about as close to the Earth as it has been all year, so it is also exceptionally bright at the moment (even though it is a crescent).

It may seem counter-intuitive, but when Venus is "full" as seen from the Earth, it is NOT at its brightest, because for Venus to be full, it would need to be on the opposite side of the Sun from the Earth -- which means it would be at approximately its furthest point away from Earth. Therefore the "crescent" Venus could often be brighter than the "full" Venus, because it is much closer to Earth.

So that very bright object in the west is Venus -- and if you looked at it with a relatively good telescope, it would appear as a crescent.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

Thankyou very much for that concise and informative reply.
I understand now.

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
Venus isn't a sliver right now, it's a 1/4 crescent. It's also about as close to the Earth as it has been all year, so it is also exceptionally bright at the moment (even though it is a crescent).

Yeah, this is the kind of crescent I was talking about seeing several years ago, and then again a few weeks ago...

Image out of focus. Can't tell a thing from that video. Venus have phases similar to our moon so crescent isnt strange at all.

Looks like dirt on your camera's ccd or cmos sensor and your video is way out of focus. From experience, even with a good 10 inch reflector telescope at 400x magnification, no detail can be seen on Venus. Size at 400x would only be that of a nickel(in focus).

Just trying to learn something here. Can anyone explain why a crescent becomes a circle when out of focus?
Thanks

This could be anything but it is NOT dirt on the lens. How some people never seen dirt on a lens before? How about dirt on your car windsheild? DIrt on a lens is not fixed to the back ground. The camera move and the dirt will move as well.

"Dirt on the lens" and "lens flare" are the two most over used terms I have ever heard and most ofter used wrong



.

OP, if you can find any other pinpoint light sources in your area, Take a video shot of them as well.
Perhaps a streetlight that is very far away. It's really hard to get a tight focus on distant pinpoint light sources.
Your Venus image looks out of focus. Are you able to manually focus your device? If so, Venus should appear as a crisp small dot, or with enough zoom, you might get a hint of a crescent, depending on magnification.

And make sure it's only OPTICAL magnification, and not digital magnification, which is a function of the camera's built in software, rather than just the lenses.

Originally posted by fixer1967
This could be anything but it is NOT dirt on the lens. How some people never seen dirt on a lens before? How about dirt on your car windsheild? DIrt on a lens is not fixed to the back ground. The camera move and the dirt will move as well.

"Dirt on the lens" and "lens flare" are the two most over used terms I have ever heard and most ofter used wrong

I don't know exactly what it is, but it's NOT a shadow or storm on Venus, because the big round object in the video is not an image of a big round Venus...

...well, to clarify, it probably is Venus, but it's big and round because it is severely out of focus. It's NOT big and round because it is a magnified image of Venus. the Zoom feature on video cameras do not have the ability to make Venus look that big while still being in focus.

The fact that the "shadow" is not out of focus while Venus IS out of focus makes me think it is something in or on the camera.

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

Originally posted by fixer1967
This could be anything but it is NOT dirt on the lens. How some people never seen dirt on a lens before? How about dirt on your car windsheild? DIrt on a lens is not fixed to the back ground. The camera move and the dirt will move as well.

"Dirt on the lens" and "lens flare" are the two most over used terms I have ever heard and most ofter used wrong

I don't know exactly what it is, but it's NOT a shadow or storm on Venus, because the big round object in the video is not an image of a big round Venus...

...well, to clarify, it probably is Venus, but it's big and round because it is severely out of focus. It's NOT big and round because it is a magnified image of Venus. the Zoom feature on video cameras do not have the ability to make Venus look that big while still being in focus.

The fact that the "shadow" is not out of focus while Venus IS out of focus makes me think it is something in or on the camera.

Like I said it could be anything but not dirt on the lens. It could be a software glitch in the camera or just some kind of optical illusion. Until other people can confirm it there is no way of knowing.

Looked pretty insane, but I'm thinking it's some kind of optical illusion because I don't think you can zoom into Venus that close. That would be crazy if you could.

I was taking some photos earlier and got a few snaps of Venus, definitely crescent shaped and not lens flare or bokeh. I have a whole series of these.

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