August 25th Session

[MapleRidge]

Good day everyone...

I returned home from the road trip across the American Mid-West and Nebraska Eclipse chase late last week. I was fortunate to still be on holidays with clear skies with good seeing over the weekend, and managed to get some good solar data on Friday and Sunday. Saturday was spent with the Peterborough Astronomical Association doing solar outreach at a community festival and I had numerous visitors from the neighbors on Sunday taking in the solar views (same folk were over Saturday night for some viewing through the C14...some had never looked through a scope before and Saturn blew them away).

Processing the videos has been slow due to lots of work to catch up on at home, and returning to work on Monday. Mood at work is very low after the death of a co-worker the weekend before (motorcycle accident that took 3 lives), but everyone is coping. So far I have the Friday image set ready and they are posted below.

First to show are the full disk images, captured as follows:
Ha through the LS80T/DSII/B1200Ha + PGR Grasshopper Express (ICX674 chip):

Full-Ha.jpg (669.18 KiB) Viewed 1157 times

WL through the iStar 150mm, f8 OTA/Lunt Solar Wedge/Baader Solar Continuum + ZWO1600MM:

IS_WL_102720-ASI.jpg (1.17 MiB) Viewed 1157 times

CaK through the iStar 150mm, f8 OTA/Lunt B1800 CaK Wedge/Baader CaK Filter + ZWO1600MM:

IS_CaK_104647-ASI.jpg (758.64 KiB) Viewed 1157 times

A 3x Telextender was added ahead of the camera to get higher resolution images of the main AR's in WL and CaK, with the ZWO174MM:

3xIS_WL_103959-ASI.jpg (1.26 MiB) Viewed 1157 times

3xIS_WL_103832-ASI.jpg (538.99 KiB) Viewed 1157 times

AR2627

3x_IS_105223-ASI.jpg (875.57 KiB) Viewed 1157 times

AR2671 (no flat filed applied)

3x_IS_105431-ASI.jpg (775.21 KiB) Viewed 1157 times

The final set of images were taken through the CR-150/Baader ERF/3x Telextender/Quantum 0.45A + ZWO174MM Camera:

3x_CR150_111412-ASI.jpg (1.39 MiB) Viewed 1157 times

3x_CR150_111320-ASI.jpg (407.31 KiB) Viewed 1157 times

I was glad to have good conditions to work in again. I will post the set from Sunday soon.

Questions and comments are always welcome,
Brian

[gabrieli]

Hi, Brian

First, my condolences for the loss of your coworker. It brought back a handful of similar tragedies involving my colleagues in my own former occupation.

It's great that you had the opportunity to experience the recent eclipse and I'm anticipating your results when they're available.

I wanted to ask you a question about your white light imaging setup using your Daystar ERF and Ha filter that you posted some time ago.
I've tried using the same ERF + c9.25 with every camera filter that I've used for white light and the image is still far too bright to allow even the briefest shutter speed. I've already asked Laura (LauraMS) about her Ha filter (35nm) and expecting her response soon. Do you use anything else to cut down light besides the ERF and Ha camera filter? Is your blocking filter in place? I'm not really familiar with how dark these Ha filters might be.

Lou

[MapleRidge]

Hi Lou...

Thanks for your comments on the series and condolences as well

I have taken the 25cm larger aperture scope down for the moment...will move to another mount so that I can evaluate it in the rare periods of good seeing...so far the results have been less than hoped for in Ha.

I believe that I was adding a variable polarizer to adjust the brightness when imaging with no barlows, but can't remember if it was in place for the images through the Ha filter (mine is 12nm). Next session I will have to verify what was best.

Brian

[Carbon60]

Death brings everything into perspective, Brian. My condolences.

Beautiful images and successful outreach. It's nice to share the experience with others.

Stu.

[Derek Klepp]

Brian those Daystar images always have a distinctive look thanks for the views.

[ffellah]

Very nice images, Brian. Sorry for your coworker.

Franco

[robert]

Beautiful work, thanks
Robert

[MapleRidge]

Thanks everyone for your comments...always appreciated

Brian