SolarChat!

PEterW

Does anyone have a Sunspotter whitelight solar projection scope that they are not using as I would like to get hold of one for using in solar outreach. I live in the UK and am happy to cover the USPS shipping costs as I know it is not the lightest piece of kit.

Cheers

PEter

PEterW

Intes, cheap, but not you need to be careful when using as the filters are not fixed and the exhaust is very simple. Takes good shots though. You might have back focus issues with a 2" wedge, best to check the scope you want to use to see if it'll work. Should give razor sharp white light shots...

PEterW

Ken, you only just moved to Belguim.....!keepmus upto date on your spectrohelioscope plans. At least Oz should be a bit sunnier, though postage to the rest of the world is higher.

Cheers

PEterW

PEterW

Aaaarrrhhh, fastnPC massive storage, quad quad core PC to stack....tooooooo much data!

Bet someone will try it!

PEterW

PEterW

You mean like this page.....
http://solardatabase.free.fr/sol.php

PErerW

PEterW

Let the program choose... Then you know who to blame if it goes wrong!

PErerW

PEterW

Several people still sell them, though the shipping seems tommakemit very expensive to buy outside the US. If Stephen could get us a good bulk deal and then find a way of getting them shipped more economically.imwonder how many people here would be interested I getting hold of one.

Cheers

Peter

PEterW

Baa er zoom is good though the field of view at the long end is constricted. Finding the sun I use the televue solar anger and never have a problem.... Haven't popped my eye to the scope in months!

Peterw

PEterW

What image generation setup did you use? Was this moving slit or drift scanning. I also guess that there has been no stacking of the image, just a bit if wavelets and other post processing? I am really impressed, most of the amateur spctrohelio images I see are riddled with streaky artefacts that ma...

PEterW

Proper job! I quite like a darker cak disk, makes the bright regions look like they are cracks with a glow inside.... Good to see the new camera is firings all cylinders!

Cheers

PEterW

PEterW

Was on holiday in Bude a few years back and had the option of popping over if it was clear...... Yep, clouds the whole time!

Let us know how you get on.... Enjoy the beaches!

PEterW

PEterW

Sent a few emails out to different people asking about availability... See if I can locate the source of them and ask them about a bulk discount. $365 is the lowest I have seen. Thanks for the advise Stephen.... The trouble is in the UK it is rarely clear, to turn up with a scope and find clouds and...

PEterW

I am asking about as they seem to be out of stock in most places. I did put together a cheap cardboard,projector for the transit of 04... showed quite a few people it. Blasted thing only just made it through e day after being dropped a few times. Hence I would prefer Sotho a bit more robust! I will ...

PEterW

Looking to put together some schools a solar outreach activities. Had a good chat with a seasoned outreach colleague today, plenty of hints of how to structure things. Now the hard work to work things out in more detail begins! Of course if it is clear then observing will be on the cards, halpha sco...

PEterW

I agree, looking for transit sites. Seems fairly accurate when finding the sun, though you have to waggle the device about to recap the magnetometer

PEterW

PEterW

Reading up about ISOON and GONG and came across the NSO... their visitor FAQ contains some real funnies.... I love the bit about christmas weather ;-)

http://nsosp.nso.edu/node/47

Cheers

PEterW

PEterW

A what?

PEter

PEterW

I assume this will also work with other cameras that PHD can read and that have 1.25" adapters, such as my Lodestar? I wondered how you would get round the angular size. What sort of focal length imaging can it correct for, typically for night time autoguiding you can guide a scope that is arou...

PEterW

Found some talk about using further narrowband filters to help reduce continuum leakage in commercial hydrogen alpha Solarscopes. Has anyone tried this? Is the leakage close in or across a broader band?close in will need a costly coated filter, broader band an a standard astro halpha filter should s...

PEterW

http://www.hoyaopticalfilters.co.uk/ need to ask for a quote for a 2" bit. optical quality probably worse than a dedicated B filter, need to check my scope will come to focus before I buy one.

Peter

PEterW

Hoya b390 glass, nearly perfect. Can get it cut to size, cheaper than special B filters.

PEterW

Trent, please post some details, if you are on CloudyNights or stargazers lounge, I could PM you, otherwise it'll have o be email. We're very interested

Peter

PEterW

Modern Astronomy in the UK sells a short nosepiece for PST work.

PEter

PEterW

The 3rd whitelight shows what can be done (CaK fulldisk is good too!), maybe the other suffer from focus trouble? Last time out I gave up trying to find exact focus the seeing was so rubbish! How do you find the Atik Titan, can it really "do everything"?

Cheers

PEter

PEterW

Any update on a prototype firstlight? Guess its cloud dependent! Mark a DVD spectroscope should show the main Fraunhofer lines, will need a narrow slit. I tried with a cd one and looked at a cloud, definite dark lines present.

Cheers

Peter

PEterW

Stephen, you're welcome too, I live just round the corner from Hampton Court Palace! Cloud chamber details please, I am the "master of the cloud chamber" at my company "science for adults" course... a small one we use to visualise a small mixed radioactive source.... that monster...

PEterW

... bigger portable hard drive!! I delete the "started just as the cloud rolled in" or "darn, wrong camera settings" ones, but don't tend to delete vids yet. Finding out I ought to have saved stacked images in 16bit means plenty of evenings going back though the best ones.... and...

PEterW

I've meant to put together a Solar observing talk for local societies.... never got round to it. Seeing I now have better kit and with this new book that Alexandra mentions.... no excuse! I believe Nick Howes has done one and I once went to a very good talk by Kev Smith (one time Daystar agent) that...

PEterW

Naively you'd think that stacking would do better than a single shot, let Registax do the heavy lifting.... be interesting how you find the LSI performs in detailed testing!

Cheers

pEterW

PEterW

Should be an award for the largest number of glasses given out! If Keele get a 150mm... might spark an aperture "war".

Great report,even without the sun showing!

Cheers

PEterW

PEterW

For full disk I use much the same, manual slow motion tracking when needed, though I lack the DS module ;-)
You got a big backpack! Enjoy the trip.

PEterW

PEterW

All top notch, vote for cak1 also. Good to see more good sunspots Comming to replace the last lot. I am going to sleep in and stick a black dot on one of my existing images.... Not worth trying to catch a few minutes of the transit.

Cheers

PEterw

PEterW

I tend to find the springer series books not so good, especially on the images. Judging by the number of solar books you have got on your shelves I was sort of reckoning we needed to do our own as none had everything in it. So you would reckon that's need to let it drop into my amazon basket soon? H...

PEterW

I have a mug with a picture of my retina on it....
Taken at my last laser eye test, looking for holes that shouldn't be there!

Cheers

Peter

PEterW

You should put the image on a mug!

Peterw

PEterW

Ken, this is why we really ought to start putting together a book or supplying images to people who are, as most books out there aren't too good on the images front! Also we should pop a good bit on our registaxing. It's good fun to be in such a rapidly advancing area... Wonder what the next advance...

PEterW

Very monty python! Every time you hide under the towel on the table kids turn up....! Great work! You would have trouble believing we still have a sun here in the UK, pity about your outreach Mark.... Though you have loads of killer images to show people....

PeterW

PEterW

I find that things do not change much with the pressure tuner.... No snap to he best setting, but you have shown that we still get some useful information off band.... Another thing to add to the todo list! At last something those pesky PST modders can't do!

Cheers

Peter

PEterW

Top notch... Even with a little 'notch' in the disk!

PeterW

PEterW

Someone has supposedly used PHD to track the sun.

PEterW

PEterW

DMK31... so still in 8-bit land, you been lucky with the Gamma then. Be good to see these with a bit of colour... pop them in Spaceweather!

Cheers

PEter

PEterW

Microsoft ICE... good for disks where it has something to work with, I manually combine prom shots, making sure all the gamma and wavelet settings were the same to avoid problems.

pEterW

PEterW

Anyone know of a CaK ERF in 2" threaded format.... I got ideas!

Cheers

PEter

PEterW

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
Stop making my Lunt feel inferior!
Top drawer stuff, nothing more to say! Love the spicules round the edge of the disk, are you merging disk and proms?
I NEED more aperture!

Cheers

PEter

PEterW

Around 600frames at 15fps. Usually stack the best 20%. started with AviStack, it was OK, but slow. Moved to Reg6 (win7), pretty easy, works well and is quick. I have played with astrostakkaety once, need to put my new disk shots through it to see how well it does. The wavelets is what really brings ...

PEterW

... Pressure tuner (or Lunt solid etalon)? Bit cheeky I know!
Your recipe is a bit of a "witches brew" Mark, but the results speak for themselves!

Cheers

PEter

PEterW

... plenty to look out for over the weekend!

PEterW

PEterW

Wanted to make people wonder what wavelength it was... though most people on this forum wouldn't need a second look.Random colour, just pulled one slider along and left it. I was surprised how short the exposures were, next step will be barlowing it.

Cheers

PEter

PEterW

Took a rather long lunchbreak waiting for the little holes in the cloud, just as I was about to pack up it cleared long enough to allow me to shoot off one short video. First go with a new bit of kit! (The last I plan to get for a while unless Ken makes a spectrohelioscope kit!) 80mm scope with DMK ...

PEterW

Need the match the camera resolution to frame rate to scope focal length to keep the pixels square! Previous digital reconstructed Images I have seen look a bit streaky and low res, I'm sure we are going to do better! Am I right in remembering that christian buil had some suitable software? Seems we...

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