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Lens Flare While Observing Venus

-- Arun Maghilan | July 30, 2020

Radar image of half of the planet Venus.

Question:

Hi,
I am a star enthusiastic living in Ranipet, India (12°58’N 79°16’E). On 21st, July 2020 05:03 Hrs IST, I was trying to see the NEOWISE comet C/2020 F3. With my DSLR camera I was shooting the stars and to my surprise I could see some strange light appear near planet Venus. As I watched, the light moved around planet Venus and later it moved away. I took some pictures of the happening and attached them herewith in sequence. These pictures were taken from 05:03 Hrs to 05:16 Hrs IST, after then I lost visual of the light source and it was not visible to the naked eye too. I do not know what it is.

The pictures I have taken can be found in this link.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bVufjB0JqH457AXlNwX5Ruc_1D2Om_cB?usp=sharing

Please help me to understand about the light source.

Thanks and Regards,
Arun.

-- Arun Maghilan

Answer:

I believe that what you are seeing in your images of Venus are internal reflections of scattered light in the optics of your camera. These are called “lens flares”, and they are quite common to see when observing bright objects. Posts tagged as “unexplained celestial observations” in this blog contain a number of similar reports explainable as due to lens flares.

-- Jeff Mangum

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