DEP SKY TO SOLAR

Use this section to discuss "standard" Baader/Coronado/ Lunt SolarView/ Daystar, etc… filters, cameras and scopes. No mods, just questions/ answers and reviews.
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p1taylor
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DEP SKY TO SOLAR

Post by p1taylor »

Hi I am changing from Dep Sky to Solar, if I use my loadstar ccd and a Lunt ST60THa/? will I need a B1200 or can I use a B600, is there a sum where selling used scopes.

peter


LUNT LS 60THa WITH PRESSURE TUNER, BLOCKING FILTER B1200, Skywatcher Startravel 80T OTA, ZWO ASI 178MM, lot of bit
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Re: DEP SKY TO SOLAR

Post by marktownley »

Hi Peter, no idea about the CCD camera, not familiar with it at all. Personally would go with the B1200, b600 will work just smaller field of view and possible vignetting depending on the chip.

Are you looking to buy a Lunt60? You could put a 'want' add in the buy and sell section.

Mark


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Re: DEP SKY TO SOLAR

Post by p1taylor »

Hi Mark, thanks yes but not till I sell dep sky gear.

peter


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Re: DEP SKY TO SOLAR

Post by marktownley »

Hi Peter.

Just googled the lodestar, tbh, if youre getting rid of the deepsky stuff i'd flog the lodestar too, it's pixels are 8.4um which means suited to about f30 in Ha, also very small chip. There are quite a few options for decent cameras for solar pretty cheap these days that will make your life a lot easier!

Mark


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Re: DEP SKY TO SOLAR

Post by p1taylor »

Hi Mark, yes I will let the loadstar go thanks for that, anything to make life easier, which camera will be best.

peter


LUNT LS 60THa WITH PRESSURE TUNER, BLOCKING FILTER B1200, Skywatcher Startravel 80T OTA, ZWO ASI 178MM, lot of bit
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Re: DEP SKY TO SOLAR

Post by rsfoto »

marktownley wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 12:55 pm Hi Peter.

Just googled the lodestar, tbh, if youre getting rid of the deepsky stuff i'd flog the lodestar too, it's pixels are 8.4um which means suited to about f30 in Ha, also very small chip. There are quite a few options for decent cameras for solar pretty cheap these days that will make your life a lot easier!

Mark
Hi Peter,

I second what Mark said and I think the Lodestar, og which I own 3 of them, is not capable to go down to those very short exposure times we use in Soalr imaging, but I am not sure.

The question here is also which imagin software will you use ?

Nowadays there are much much better cameras then the Lodestar. I just bought the ASI 174MM Mini and discontinued all my Lodestar for autoguiding. Lodestar came our if I remember well 15 years ago and is a camera I would not buy again in this times for autoguiding. It was very good when is came out but it has been surpassed by better technology.


regards Rainer

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Re: DEP SKY TO SOLAR

Post by p1taylor »

Hi I was thinking of using MAXIM DL5 it will do down to 0.001 second.

peter


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Re: DEP SKY TO SOLAR

Post by rsfoto »

p1taylor wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 5:21 pm Hi I was thinking of using MAXIM DL5.

peter
Hi Peter,

I have MaxIm DL but I have never seen if it can stream video as you will need to do for Solar imaging.

In Solar imaging we use what is called Lucky Imaging which means we take a lot of images = AVI or whatever other video format, SER format is also commonly used.

BTW, nearly all cameras have a free software for video capturing, some better some worse. Most of the free software packages coming with the cameras are more or less for Microscopy as far as I have seen. There is also FireCapture a free software and of course other software packages for sale. All software packages do what we want and it is a personal question of taste which software the author uses.

Deep Sky imaging is completely different to Solar imaging as well as the next step which is processing is also totally different to Deep Sky processing.

Lucky imaging is more or less shooting a lot of images and choose the best ones but in this case software packages like RegiStax or AviStack and perhaps many more do analyze all frames and pick out the best parts of each frame and then like a jig saw puzzle creates an image out of the hundreds or thousand of pieces.

After that then you go back into whatever Image processing software and beautify your image as you like it.


regards Rainer

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Re: DEP SKY TO SOLAR

Post by marktownley »

Hi Peter.

For a couple of 3 hundred quid there are many nice camera options. Are you going to pay for Maxim? All the software you will need for solar is all open source and free.

You're starting solar at just the right time, just as we head into a new solar cycle. You have a great decade ahead :)

Mark


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Re: DEP SKY TO SOLAR

Post by rsfoto »

marktownley wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 6:39 pm Hi Peter.

For a couple of 3 hundred quid there are many nice camera options. Are you going to pay for Maxim? All the software you will need for solar is all open source and free.

You're starting solar at just the right time, just as we head into a new solar cycle. You have a great decade ahead :)

Mark
Hi Mark,

He is coming from Deep Sky Imaging so he already owns MaxIm, but the main problem is that MaxIm does not take videos at high speed.

I just made a test with MaxIm DL v6 and it took about 2 minutes to download 100 images at a size 1920 x 1080 pixels with an ASI 1600MM.

AsiStudio did take it much faster like 25 sconds for 100 images.

Then I took SharpCap with the same 1920 x 1080 and it took in video mode about 12 seconds. The ASI 1600 of course is not a good planetary imager.


regards Rainer

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Re: DEP SKY TO SOLAR

Post by p1taylor »

Thanks all for your help, when we can travel I can get started.

peter


LUNT LS 60THa WITH PRESSURE TUNER, BLOCKING FILTER B1200, Skywatcher Startravel 80T OTA, ZWO ASI 178MM, lot of bit
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