SUNSET: 
0
Photographer:
Paolo Palma
Location of Photo:
Naples, Italy
Date/Time of photo:
21th august 2024
Equipment:
Dobson skywatcher telescope 18"
Description:
The viewing of the phenomenon because of the difficulty it proved to be quite an observational challenge. Neptune's disc in fact has an apparent diameter of only 2.34 only – about 60 times smaller than that of Saturn – and finter of about 7 magnitudes than it. The vision was also disadvantaged by the fact that it occurred when the it was still low on the horizon, by a very bright gibbous Moon and by a sky that was not so clear. To increase the contrast, I then followed the planet with my dobson 18" at 404x and to make sure I found it, I started to do so 30 minutes before the contact. It appeared like a faint shimmering star with less and less contrast. Here a shot taken at the end of the phenomenon with an Huawei p30 pro ISO320 1/50s at the telescope
