Venus Science Options

[JRehling]

Excellent Ground-Based Venus Images

At http://www.astrode.de/venus07.htm, one can see some excellent 'amatuer' ground-based images of Venus. Text in German.

My understanding is these are taken from a 10th floor location in the center of Munich, using a web cam that takes data over a period of time and then uses an algorithmic selection of the most crisp images, which are then overlayed.

Most excellent.

-don

That is really great stuff -- the best ground-based Venus images I've seen. And Munich seems like an exceptionally poor location to work from compared to the Andes or Arizona.

By comparison, the one Mercury image, while impressive in its own right, is far from the best I've seen, with amateurs like the late Erwin van der Velden having resolved crater ray systems. I wonder if the best practices for imaging Mercury could be adapted to Venus and produce even better work? Of course, there are many factors making the two tasks different -- Venus is intrinsically brighter but only shows this detail in UV or IR. Mercury is less luminous per unit surface area, shows details in visible spectra, but offers very low contrast. And offers much less favorable separation from the Sun.

These Venus images make me wish for a systematic ground-based survery showing "video" of its global weather. Easily done for a tiny fraction the cost of a space-based mission.

[J.J.]

WOW!!!



Those are far and away the best ground-based Venus images I've seen; that kind of quality would have been unthinkable even from large observatory telescopes a generation ago.

Ditto for JRehling's movie concept...

[tedstryk]

Check out these images I came across. Looks almost like a spacecraft image.

[JRehling]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18040861/

New pictures!

I can't find any mention on the ESA mission page. MSNBC may have raided their data and released it for them.

[elakdawalla]

Those are the four that were released a couple weeks ago:
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEM9N77DWZE_index_0.html

I've gotten a (very) little more info on these and have been planning to post but haven't managed to get to it yet...

--Emily

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Speaking of Venus science, the first of several papers of JGR-Planets - Special Collection: Exploring Venus as a Terrestrial Planet, has been published online.

[cndwrld]

Venus Ground-Based Images

At ESA's pages for the Venus Amateur Observing Project, more excellent photos of Venus taken from her sister planet are now posted at:

http://tinyurl.com/2xxb2d

These video frame overlays are just fantastic.

[cndwrld]

Movies of Venus' South Pole Vortex

The ESA science pages have been updated to include an article on the south pole vortex on Venus. Venus Express has imaged the pole over a period of days, and used special downlink arrangements to take much more data than previously allowed. The resulting movies taken by the VIRTIS imaging spectrometer are quite amazing.

The page, entitled "Venus Express’ infrared camera goes filming", is available at:
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Venus_Express/SEMQKVU681F_0.html

More science results can be viewed at:
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=39432

[cndwrld]

Another set of ground-based images of Venus has now been posted at:
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=41107


And some cute pictures of the recent occultaion of Venus by the Moon can be found at:

http://foto.star-shine.ch/details.php?image_id=630
http://forum.astronomie.de/phpapps/ubbthre...0/page/0#525968
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peter_heinzen/567875780/

http://forum.astronomie.de/phpapps/ubbthre...0/page/0#525967