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Here Comes The Rain!

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 6:36 am
by marktownley
Uh oh! Here comes cloud, rain and a return to winter for the UK; yesterday I picked up a lil' 60mm f6 ED refractor from Rupert at Astrograph in the sale they have on at the moment. This is the same scope I got great views through at the eclipse in the summer that my good friend John brought with him. It is virtually the same focal length as my double stacked Lunt50, and, cosmetically they complement each other used side by side on the mount, I plan to use it as my full disk setup both visually at outreach and also with the PGR Chameleon 3 camera. I'm interested how it performs in CaK.

ImageIMG_2037 by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Hopefully I will be able to give it a try sooner rather than later!

Mark

Re: Here Comes The Rain!

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 6:38 am
by Carbon60
Looks good, Mark. It should serve you well :)

Stu.

Re: Here Comes The Rain!

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 8:16 am
by marktownley
Hope so Stu, for a quick full disk rig I think it will perform great, with the smaller apertures being resilient to all but the worst the UK seeing conditions has to offer.

Re: Here Comes The Rain!

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 9:51 am
by Montana
Very nice Mark :)
Have you noticed that it has rained every Saturday since Christmas and this Saturday looks set for the same, so I don't think your new scope will make a difference ;)
Alexandra

Re: Here Comes The Rain!

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 1:06 pm
by Ronnie_Clayton
Nice Setup Mark!!!.

Here in Brazil it will rain too.. Yesterday I've received my Solar Spectrum RG 0,3A (thanks to Rupert from AstroGraph) and... rain for next weeks :-).

BR

Ronnie

Re: Here Comes The Rain!

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 3:22 pm
by Valery
Fantastic little gems, Mark! Looks great! Hope they will work great as well.

Question. Before I see this picture I believed that Lunt 50DS has build-in tilt mechanism. Now I see that it has the same as Coronado has.
Or it was custom changed?


Valery

Re: Here Comes The Rain!

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 4:30 pm
by Ibbo
A double whammy as I have washed the car as well - be prepared for months of rain.

looks good Mark i am sure it will give you some good views

Re: Here Comes The Rain!

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 7:57 pm
by marktownley
Valery wrote: Thu Feb 08, 2018 3:22 pm Fantastic little gems, Mark! Looks great! Hope they will work great as well.

Question. Before I see this picture I believed that Lunt 50DS has build-in tilt mechanism. Now I see that it has the same as Coronado has.
Or it was custom changed?


Valery
Hi Valery, the Lunt50 as a scope has internal pressure tune (as per the lunt range), the DS unit sits on the end and is tilt tune. I'm using a coronado bf15 with it as has considerably shorter optical path than the Lunt blockers, and solves all the issues of focusing when imaging.

Mark

Re: Here Comes The Rain!

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 2:30 am
by Valery
marktownley wrote: Thu Feb 08, 2018 7:57 pm
Valery wrote: Thu Feb 08, 2018 3:22 pm Fantastic little gems, Mark! Looks great! Hope they will work great as well.

Question. Before I see this picture I believed that Lunt 50DS has build-in tilt mechanism. Now I see that it has the same as Coronado has.
Or it was custom changed?


Valery
the DS unit sits on the end and is tilt tune.

I remember that all the DS units have their build-in tuning mechanism (like classic LS50F). Now I see that they may be changed the design ans use a tilt plate. But may be your LS50 (small red cell version) still have internal build-in tilting mechanism but also sits at the tuning plate?

Valery

Re: Here Comes The Rain!

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:13 am
by marktownley
Ahhh yes, I see what you mean now Valery. yes, the double stack unit for it is like the solarmax (original) in that it has an 'open' hinge. The 50mm double stack units for the 60mm scope are tilt tuned internally and the housing for them remains as a single solid fixed piece. Two quite mechanically different designs.

Re: Here Comes The Rain!

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:37 pm
by pedro
I've used the same setup LUNT50 + BF15. The images were OK but I had to apply an artificial flat to get a uniform FD

Image

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