29th Nov 2016 (First go with SM60 II)

[PlaneSkies2]

I tried out my new SM60 II on a 102mm F7 Ikharus today with BF10, and also double-stacked with a SM40 I've had for a while.
Pretty poor seeing and very low sun, but it was good to try out the new equipment. 40mm aperture looked to be the best with todays sun...
Lots for me to learn on how to get an even focus and even exposure across the disc using the two external etalons, which is a bit tricky with the amount of sun we get at the moment, but something to look forward to experiment with in the Spring. Can I do flats with full discs?
I'll also try my 0.8x reducer next time so that I've got a bit more leeway on getting the disc on the chip.
Also had a chance to try out a Hinode solar guider - which managed to track even through the top branches of the garden trees!

SM60 + SM40

SM60

Rough animation over an hour

[edobosz]

Good results there. Yes it is possible to use flats for FD and your best bet is to deal with them at the front end i.e. etalon tuning and then flat fielding at capture stage rather than in post processing by creating an artificial flat. In your case there are two different issues (sweet spot and some banding) which makes the post processing option with artificial flats more tricky.
Ted

BTW You have restrictions turned on for your FLICKR account (set to private) and it won't load when you click on the image.

[Carbon60]

Good images which will improve with practice. It's difficult at this time of the year testing new kit, as you acknowledge.

Nice animation.

Stu.

[Montana]

Wow! you did have some fun, I love the bird transit the best way to deal with full disc flats is to let the sun drift slowly across the capture area and the stacking software will even out the rings and bright spots. However this is only possible if you have room on your chip to drift the Sun without losing it
Alexandra

[robert]

Nice detail and activity on the animation.
Thanks for posting
Robert

[PlaneSkies2]

Many thanks everyone for the comments and also for the advice on full disc flats - very much appreciated! [and stored for future use]
Thanks for the reminder on the Flickr settings too, which I've updated...

[marktownley]

Nice shots! Any chance of a pic of this setup?

[PlaneSkies2]

I'm away for a several days now, but I'll post a pic when I get back.
I'm using your SM60/SM40 adaptor for the external double-stack Mark
Then I got another adaptor to connect the Ikharus dew shield thread to the SM60
(also got additional adaptors to connect my Tal to an SM60 and another one for my Evostar to SM60 so that I can double-stack with my current PST mod and its internal etalon at some point, by just switching the front mounted D-ERF for the SM60/adaptor) - took a little while for all the adaptor to be machined and delivered, but easier to get them all done and anodised together in a single batch I believe.
Lots of experimentation in the Spring to look forward to with the different set ups, especially for full disc, which is new to me - but mightily impressed with the solar guider already - it actually worked straight out of the box, which is a miracle for me and anything electronics/software related!

[I need to update my profile at some point too....I forgot to re-enter the info when I had to change my user name ages ago now, when the site updated]

[pedro]

I'm also interested in the setup pic

[PlaneSkies2]

A few pics of the set-up.

Ikharus F7 with SM60/SM40 DS and BF10

DSC_0408.JPG (782.65 KiB) Viewed 1216 times

DSC_0409.JPG (570.63 KiB) Viewed 1216 times

DSC_0411.JPG (692.83 KiB) Viewed 1216 times

Evostar 102 PST mod SS with D-ERF and DS with SM60

DSC_0412.JPG (897.01 KiB) Viewed 1216 times

DSC_0413.JPG (586.43 KiB) Viewed 1216 times

DSC_0416.JPG (745.33 KiB) Viewed 1216 times

Tal 100 with SM60

DSC_0418.JPG (497.14 KiB) Viewed 1216 times

DSC_0419.JPG (448.13 KiB) Viewed 1216 times

[pedro]

thanks for the pics

[marktownley]

Nice shots of the scopes!