Observe Planets on a sunny day with a Telescope?

[Flyhigh7]

I have a 9.25" Celestron Telescope and I'm wondering if it is possible to see the planets on a clear bright sunny day if the planets are not close to the sun at all. I understand the dangers of pointing a telescope at the sun without a good sun filter. Just wondering if this is possible or if the sun light will totally wash out the planets as I suspect.

[Thefatkitty]

Interesting question! As far as I know, Venus is really your only possibility in the day. Of course, Venus being covered with clouds doesn't help.

I took a shot of the Moon and Venus with my DSLR and widefield 60mm in the daytime back on Jan 31st of 2019. It was a bit before 1PM. I did take a look through my 80mm f/11, but it was just a white dot.

Hope this helps and all the best,

[OzEclipse]

You can easily see a magnitude 2 star with a 4"- 6" telescope during the day. I've seen that myself but never tested the limit.

So Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Mercury can all be observed during the day. As you say, take care with the inner planets especially now that Mercury is only at 5^o elongation. Observed means discern a brightish disc against the background sky. You won't see much detail because the darker areas that contrast the bright to provide this detail will be washed out by the blue sky.

Joe

[Bigzmey]

Daytime astronomy is fun. The tricky part is to get alignment. It helps a lot when the Moon is out during the day. As Joes says you can see the five planets and brightest stars, but not much details.

Twilight on the other hand is great time to resolve planetary details. My best ever views of Jupiter and Venus were an hour or so before sunset.

[Lady Fraktor]

I have been advocating trying this for many years.
Take a look at the lunar surface as well

[jrkirkham]

Yes, I have an 11" Celestron and have observed the brighter planets and moon during the day. You do have to be careful not to catch the sun. I keep my main tube and finder scope covered while slewing. You also have to be comfortable with your system's tracking. If your mount doesn't get you close you can have a rough time hunting. When I first started looking for daytime planets I locked on to my targets before daw and let the scope continue to track as morning came.

One of the projects I just started focuses on the moon. Some features will need to be seen during the day.

[John Baars]

Planets like Jupiter and Saturn look bleached, but it can be done. Venus is still rather bright. Very much fun, btw.

[Richard]

Yes as others mentioned its possible I observed Venus with a tracking scope from fairly dark 5.30 am up to 10am but after that was not good , was a 5 inch SCT

[DeanD]

Aargh! I just wrote a reply and it disappeared!! Try again:

I have observed all 5 brightest planets during the daytime with a TV76, Tak 102, and 8" SCT. It takes a bit of practice because of all that blue stuff up there, even when they are in the centre of the FOV- although Jupiter and Venus are pretty easy. I have seen the main cloud bands of Jupiter in the middle of the day, and stars down to Mag 3 in the SCT, or 2 in the refactors. Saturn is the trickiest because it is fainter and spread out, unlike the near point sources of Mars and Mercury- although I can usually see the rings once I spot it.

If you want to chase stars in the daytime, start off with really bright ones like Sirius or Rigel to get used to training your eyes. It can be fun trying to split bright doubles, like Alpha Centauri for us southerners. In fact the first time I saw the "pup" next to Sirius was in twilight: easier because Sirius itself wasn't so glare-y (is that a word?).

The fainter planets are easier from clear, dust-free skies like in outback South Australia. A lot harder near polluted cities.

I generally use my old iOptron Mini Tower Pro, and I set it up by lining up on the Moon (when visible), or more usually the Sun. For the Sun I cover the objective and minimise the shadow initially, then use a Baader solar filter to centre it. The software always tells me off when I do this, but I ignore it.
Traps for young players: always cover the objective of your finder as well!!!

I have also spotted Venus, Jupiter, and even Mars (near opposition) and Mercury naked eye in the daytime. This is easiest when they are favourably located near the Moon, and it helps if you stand in the shade of a building and use polarised sunglasses (mine are prescription). Again, all that blue stuff up there makes it difficult, but that is part of the fun. (Tip: once you have found the planet, don't look away or it will take ages to find it again! Alternatively, line up the planet wrt a foreground object like a post or a tree to make it easier to spot, and use binos to make sure you are looking in the right area).

Once I had a class of Grade 1 children (6-7yo) looking (naked eye) at the Moon in the daytime, when they started asking about the star they could see near the Moon (ie: Venus)... Their teacher was upset, because she couldn't see it!

Have fun!

Dean

[Flyhigh7]

Thanks for all the excellent replies. I ask because deep space Galaxies and globulars being my primary mission are out of the question until I can try to see them when they are at my zenith due to my light pollution. So for now I'm going to settle for planet work and as you all know they are only up in the day now except Jupiter and Uranus which set to close to sunset for me to view with my bad westward horizon view (trees). I know I can catch Saturn, Mars, Neptune and Mercury in the hour before sunset in early May but that won't work because my eastward horizon is blocked up to about 25 degrees as well. So for the time being I'm going to have to settle for those planets during the day when they get higher in the sky.

As far as trying to align during the day. I won't try that as I'll see if I can find them based on where Stellarium shows them for that day and time.

I may check out the moon tonight if the sky stays clear as i have not really checked it out at high mag with this 9.25 scope yet.

Thanks again for the good news.

[Flyhigh7]

The moon looked great in all my EPs all the way up to 336x (7mm EP) but at 336x the wind was too much to study detail so I didn't bother to try out the 2.5X Barlow and take the magnification any higher. I did try a few filters and that's when the clouds came in and told me to put the telescope away. Moon looked great at 214x showing the big depth of several craters at the terminator.

This was my first viewing with this scope in the daytime and it was a lot of fun to change EPs and add filters when you can see exactly what you're doing.

[jrkirkham]

The moon looked great in all my EPs all the way up to 336x (7mm EP) but at 336x the wind was too much to study detail so I didn't bother to try out the 2.5X Barlow and take the magnification any higher. I did try a few filters and that's when the clouds came in and told me to put the telescope away. Moon looked great at 214x showing the big depth of several craters at the terminator.

This was my first viewing with this scope in the daytime and it was a lot of fun to change EPs and add filters when you can see exactly what you're doing.

I always like experimenting and trying new things.

[Baurice]

I can detect the phases of Venus quite clearly in 15x70 binoculars during daylight, Lunar details are almost as clear during the day as at night. but photographing them is difficult but not impossible.