Ashen Light - Detection Attempts

Detection Attempts

Several space missions have been dedicated to record sightings of the light in hopes of solidifying what Riccioli and others have claimed. There are a few hypotheses being considered to try to explain this astronomical phenomenon.

An attempt to view the ashen light was made in Hawaii using the Keck 1 telescope. Researchers claimed to see a faint green glow on the night side of Venus. They suspected that it was carbon dioxide which is known to be of a high concentration in that atmosphere. When the molecules are split by the ultraviolet light from the Sun, they become carbon monoxide and oxygen, which emits a green light. However, this light emitted is very faint, and researchers doubt that it is the explanation surrounding ashen light.

Few other optical observations have been recorded with current instruments. For example, the spectrometer of Venera 9 saw irregular optical pulses.

Amateur astronomers attempting to view the ashen light can try this by using an occulting bar, an opaque mask for one’s eyes. This lens blocks the sunlit portion of Venus which greatly cuts down extraneous light that is scattered in the eye, improving the chances of witnessing the faint Ashen glow. However, Venus light scattered by the Earth's atmosphere and in the telescope's lens still works against the observer, and it is very hard to get the timing just right. Nevertheless, there have been calculated times in which the light scattered by Earth is covered partially by the Moon. For example, on July 17, 2001, the progression of a crescent Moon temporarily hid the illuminated portion of Venus. Unfortunately the location needed to catch this almost perfect occultation was somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and it was only visible in this manner for 10 to 20 seconds.