Amateur astronomers wanted to take Venus pics

William Atkins
Sunday, 25 November 2007 20:45

Science - Space

Scientists with the Venus Express mission are looking for images of the planet Venus taken by amateur and professional astronomers. Can you help?                  

The Venus Express spacecraft was launched at 3:33:34 UT by a Soyuz-Fregat rocket from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, on November 9, 2005. It was sent into a transfer orbit, which sent it on its way to the planet about 1.5 hours after liftoff. The flight to Venus took about 150 Earth days. It is the first mission by the European Space Agency (ESA) to explore Venus.

The Venus Express spacecraft has been orbiting about Venus since April 11, 2006. It is in a 24-hour elliptical nearly-polar orbit around the planet. The craft, built by the ESA, is looking at the Venusian atmosphere and clouds with its bevy of spectrometers, cameras, and other scientific instruments. For instance, the Analyzer of Space Plasmas and Energetic Atoms 4 (ASPERA-4) is an instrument that is looking into the interaction of the solar wind and the Venusian atmosphere.

However, astronomers and scientists in charge of the mission need some help. They would like your input as photographers to the project, which has been extended out to at least April 2009.

Please take a look at the ESA website “Venus Ground-Based Active Archive.”

The introduction to the website states, “The Venus ground-based Active Archive (VAA) allows you to upload and retrieve ground-based Venus observations obtained in infrared, visual or ultraviolet wavelengths. The aim of this archive is to complement the ongoing Venus Express (VEX) spacecraft observations of Venus with worldwide ground-based images to allow for continuous monitoring of the planet.”

The website includes instructions on how to submit images, along with frequently asked questions. It also contains the names of the photographers with the most accepted submittals, and views of the photographs recently submitted.

So, grab your cameras and telescopes and check out Venus in the morning sky. Venus is the brightest of the planets in the sky. In the northern hemisphere, Venus started 2007 as the “Evening Star,” low in the western sky just after sunset. It got higher in the sky during spring and early summer. It disappeared from the sky in the fall, but reappeared in the morning sky as the “Morning Star” late in August, where it remains for the rest of the year.