Venus During Conjunction 10 August 1999, at 12 UT 10-inch Telescope, 1/000 second Fuji 400, By Mohammad Odeh.

Venus reached the inferior conjunction on 20 August 1999 at 14:53 local time. Luckily, we were able to observe Venus during the previous inferior conjunction too, which occurred on 16th January 1998. Kindly Click Here to read about that observation.

For sure, who sees the magnificent crescent of Venus during the conjunction will never wish to miss any one. Consequently, we prepared for this observation one day before the conjunction, where we managed to use another technique than that was used in the previous conjunction. This time we used Meade LX200 10-inch telescope, and now we don't have to do the work manually, since the telescope is computerized. However, the telescope needs two-star alignment in order to work properly ! Thus, we made the alignment the night before the conjunction, and we left the telescope switched on till the next morning !

On Friday 20 August 1999 around 12 local time, I went to the roof, where the telescope was mounted, and ordered the telescope to point at Venus. But, as I expected !! It gave: "Object too close to the Sun" Well... So the telescope will not move automatically to Venus ! Nevertheless, the keypad of the telescope reads the coordinates at which the telescope is pointed. So I kept moving the telescope by the keypad until the displayed coordinates matched the ones of Venus. Which are: (R.A.: 09:46:14, Declination: 04:50:38). A question came in our mind since the last night, that is: Will the telescope be that accurate and get Venus in the field after about 10 hours of the alignment !!?? We couldn't know the answer until this moment.... As I looked in the eyepiece (40 mm, 62.5X) I was surprised to find the dazzling thin crescent in the field !! It was really a great scene ! Also, I took some photos through the telescope. Later on, another member of JAS, Mr. Tareq Katbeh came and enjoyed this show too ! The inferior conjunction of Venus occurs once every 584 days, so who missed this one, he should wait until the next inferior conjunction in the next millennium on 30/03/2001 !!!

Comparing this observation to the one made for the previous conjunction, I could notice the following things:-

• The crescent this time was more obvious than the one in 1998, I believe the reason is due the separation between the Sun and Venus, where it was 5.8 degrees (North of the Sun) in 1998, while this time it was 8.1 degrees (South of the Sun).
• I enjoyed the technique used in 1998 more than this one used in 1999. In 1998 I made every thing manually, which gave me the felling that I made the observation ! While this time it was the telescope not me :-) !!