Multiple Images of Venus

[Jaycee3000]

Hello All
I experienced some odd behavior when viewing Venus this morning. Once venus was in my sights and properly focused, I saw about 5 or 6 images of Venus superimposed and offset a little where they overlapped (see #1 in image; I expected a solitary Venus as in #2). The issue could not be reproduced when I looked at the moon which resolved quite nicely. It was too bright to easily find any other celestial objects and had to help kids with presents. The sky was hazy but the moon appeared to be in more haze than Venus. Issues persisted with or without the 3X Barlow and with the 26mm Plossl and 10mm eyepieces. A quick look tells me that the mirror is collimated. Any ideas? Any help would be appreciated.

Would love to link to the image I created but under 5 posts, no links. Let;s try this: media. tumblr . com/tumblr_ldzrs5Ib891qemo4c.jpg

[Dublin sky watch]

Try upload the images into an album on your site.
Or just wait for over 5 posts...

[Jaycee3000]

Well, did some checking and it appears to be coma so collimation is called for, I guess. The new (to me) Orion 100mm is somewhat non-intuitive as regards to collimation (single paragraph, no illustration, and "10,000 foot level description" (i.e. generic, no real detail) leaves me not wanting to atempt until I get more detail so I fired off an email to Orion. My first time using them for support so I hope they're good.

[ferkijel]

Mmm...that's very odd. Was Venus VERY low in the horizon, and you were looking at it over a hot roof, e.g. your neighbor's house/chimney, a factory, etc ? Atmospheric diffraction has a huge influence on viewing.

[Jaycee3000]

Originally Posted by ferkijel

Mmm...that's very odd. Was Venus VERY low in the horizon, and you were looking at it over a hot roof, e.g. your neighbor's house/chimney, a factory, etc ? Atmospheric diffraction has a huge influence on viewing.

It wasn' that high in the sky, about an azimuth of 25 degrees. Was it over a roof? Yes, it was. By contrast the moon was much higher and not over a roof. I will still fine tune the collimation but I think you were on to something there. Thanks!

[KeithBC]

Originally Posted by Jaycee3000

about an azimuth of 25 degrees.

You are going to get yourself confused talking like that. You mean an altitude of 25 degrees.

Azimuth is the horizontal angle, usually measured from north. An azimuth of 25 degrees is about north-northeast.

[TCA]

I've had this happen during a quick look of Saturn before in the early morning when it was very cold. I was using a SpaceProbe 3 reflector. It was housed in an unheated garage and was fairly equalized and collimated. Venus and the moon seem to come in just fine, but Saturn had double vision for some reason. Never could explain it, only happened once that I recall.

The only thing I can think of is the eyepiece itself. The Celestron zoom with multiple lenses not fully acclimated to outside temperature. An eyepiece with a barlow might have had the same effect with multiple lenses and trapped pockets of warm air. Only thing I can think of, either that or an anomaly in cheaper EPs/lenses......internal light scatter, excess reflections, etc.

[mplanet62]

I reckon you worry too much, Jay.
Venus is generally very tricky for telescope observation. It's usually low over the horizon - thus prone to bad seeing conditions- and excessively bright. I could never resolve it quite right with my old Celestron AstroMaster 114, even after I had the telescope collimated professionally. Maybe, because coma cannot be removed completely from Newton type telescope just by collimating it. It's the Newton's design drawback. I was able to see Venus's phases with my 10X42 binoculars and refractors (50/360 and 102/1000). Better in the dawn/dusk skies - less contrast with the background.

[Jaycee3000]

Originally Posted by KeithBC

You are going to get yourself confused talking like that. You mean an altitude of 25 degrees.

Azimuth is the horizontal angle, usually measured from north. An azimuth of 25 degrees is about north-northeast.

Yes, I meant altitude.

[Jaycee3000]

Some good points here and thanks to all who responded and I will endeavor to say altitude when I mean altitude and not azimuth. The 100mm Orion is new for me so which is why I started thinking coma. I've seen Venus before and never had the problem in the past (and I do miss my old 2" refractor of my youth!) If there is anything that came out of this is me forgetting the rules, especially with allowing time for the 70 degree scope to adjust to the 30 degree air outdoors. It was Christmas morn and I only had so much time to use the new 100mm before putting on the Dad hat. Under normal circumstances I would have been more patient and would not have attributed to the new hardware, but a warm scope in a cold environment looking over a warm chimney at low altitude doesn't help matters much. Hopefully beginners will learn from my mistake and take it slow and do it right and not rush things and jump to panicky conclusions!