My first image of Venus from the 2019-2020 evening apparition. Venus was 66% illuminated in this image.

Hoping to improve on this in the coming weeks as Venus climbs higher in the evening sky. My first few tries had poor results due to the need to collimate the SCT and generally poor seeing. I still need to improve the collimation but that will need to wait for some better seeing. I used UV-IR cut filter for this imaging session as I wanted to carefully dial in the ADC and make a good effort at collimating. I plan to use the 685nm IR pass filter for subsequent imaging. I've toyed with getting a UV filter but don't fully trust that I'll get my scope collimated well enough and get lucky enough with the seeing to make it worthwhile. The cloud details in the Venus images we're seeing from folks using the U Venus filter sure are amazing though...

Imaged with a C8 Evo, ZWO ADC, Baader UV-IR Cut filter, and ZWO ASI224MC. Imaging train was configured to give me ~F/20. Image capture using Firecapture with gain set at 265 and an exposure of 0.2 ms. Stacking in AutoStakkert3 (best 20% of ~270000 frames captured over 180 seconds). Color balancing and Wavelet sharpening in Registax6. Derotated and combined three images in WinJUPOS.

FireCapture v2.5 Settings

------------------------------------

Observer=JDJ

Scope=Celestron Nextstar Evolution 8

Camera=ZWO ASI224MC

Filter=RGB

Profile=Venus

Diameter=17.63"

Magnitude=-4.19

FocalLength=4350mm (F/21)

Resolution=0.18"

Filename=2020-02-22-0006_5-J-RGB.avi

Date=2020_02_22

Start=000504.071

Mid=000634.075

End=000804.080

Start(UT)=000504.071

Mid(UT)=000634.075

End(UT)=000804.080

Duration=180.009s

Date_format=yyyy_MM_dd

Time_format=HHmmss

LT=UT -5h

Frames captured=26959

File type=AVI

Extended AVI mode=true

Compressed AVI=false

Binning=no

ROI=300x300

ROI(Offset)=0x0

FPS (avg.)=149

Shutter=0.200ms

Gain=265 (44%)

Gamma=50

HighSpeed=on

WBlue=95

Brightness=1

HardwareBin=off

SoftwareGain=10 (off)

AutoHisto=75 (off)

AutoExposure=off

WRed=52

USBTraffic=100

Histogramm(min)=0

Histogramm(max)=113

Histogramm=44%

Noise(avg.deviation)=n/a

Limit=180 Seconds

Sensor temperature=10.6 °C

Focuser position=0