Calcium Sun - 6th April
- marktownley
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Calcium Sun - 6th April
Tuesday offered a shift in wind direction for me, more north westerly, and experience tells me that despite MeteoBlue saying 3" seeing it would be locally better. This direction often brings cumulus clouds, and the blue gaps in between the clouds often offer some decent seeing. This was confirmed when I started off with the CaK full disk at 60mm f16, and a considerably more stable view than of recent days.
CaK-FD-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
CaK-FD-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
Today also offered a chance to continue my CaK triple stack journey, I tried a few configurations i'd thought of the previous evening. Whatever I try I get consistently better results in double stack, and using the sky bender I am able to tune the second filter of the stack to give maximum contrast which in turn reveals the chromospheric fringe and proms. Double stack also has about 3-4 time shorter exposure which when fishing in the better moments of seeing is a must...
Deciding to chance it I went for 100mm f28 with the IMX174, and taking 4000 frame captures figured there would be enough good sub frames to make a decent image: Firstly departing AR12813... All closeup images have a decent amount of zoom left in them, so double click for the view in Flickr.
ar12813-CaK-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
ar12813-CaK-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
And the decaying area of plage, yesterday had several pores, but was struggling to make them out today...
Magnetic-active-region-CaK-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
Magnetic-active-region-CaK-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
On the north east limb there was more plage but was struggling to get a decent view of this one.
East-patch-cak-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
East-patch-cak-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
Then, just to be silly, and because i'm testing out a couple of different optical configurations, I went for 100mm f46, again with the IMX174, I knew seeing wasn't up to it, so increased the frame count to 6000 with a view of stacking only the very best. Some silly colour just for fun too!
NE-limb-cak-close-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
NE-limb-cak-close-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
ar12813-cak-close-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
ar12813-cak-close-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
Then this cheeky little number came out of stacking, looks like there is some potential for this when in the constraints of the seeing...
magnetic-region-CaK-close-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
magnetic-region-CaK-close-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
Quite pleased with the last closeup, definitely my favourite from today and worth the full size view. I want to see if I can get somewhere around f40 for slightly better sampling. More CaK experiments for tomorrow assuming the blue skies carry on a bit more.
Hope you like.
Mark
CaK-FD-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
CaK-FD-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
Today also offered a chance to continue my CaK triple stack journey, I tried a few configurations i'd thought of the previous evening. Whatever I try I get consistently better results in double stack, and using the sky bender I am able to tune the second filter of the stack to give maximum contrast which in turn reveals the chromospheric fringe and proms. Double stack also has about 3-4 time shorter exposure which when fishing in the better moments of seeing is a must...
Deciding to chance it I went for 100mm f28 with the IMX174, and taking 4000 frame captures figured there would be enough good sub frames to make a decent image: Firstly departing AR12813... All closeup images have a decent amount of zoom left in them, so double click for the view in Flickr.
ar12813-CaK-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
ar12813-CaK-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
And the decaying area of plage, yesterday had several pores, but was struggling to make them out today...
Magnetic-active-region-CaK-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
Magnetic-active-region-CaK-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
On the north east limb there was more plage but was struggling to get a decent view of this one.
East-patch-cak-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
East-patch-cak-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
Then, just to be silly, and because i'm testing out a couple of different optical configurations, I went for 100mm f46, again with the IMX174, I knew seeing wasn't up to it, so increased the frame count to 6000 with a view of stacking only the very best. Some silly colour just for fun too!
NE-limb-cak-close-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
NE-limb-cak-close-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
ar12813-cak-close-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
ar12813-cak-close-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
Then this cheeky little number came out of stacking, looks like there is some potential for this when in the constraints of the seeing...
magnetic-region-CaK-close-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr
magnetic-region-CaK-close-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr
Quite pleased with the last closeup, definitely my favourite from today and worth the full size view. I want to see if I can get somewhere around f40 for slightly better sampling. More CaK experiments for tomorrow assuming the blue skies carry on a bit more.
Hope you like.
Mark
http://brierleyhillsolar.blogspot.co.uk/
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Re: Calcium Sun - 6th April
You certainly are working-hard to try out these experimental set-up's Mark. And in the cold too. Better you than me. Even the possibility of some snow in the SE, as has occurred in SW-Holland According to my Daughter there and with our temps today around 6 to 8-degsC, you are brave...
The close-up's of AR2813 are my favs - even though decaying as it nears the limb.
Cheers
Terry (in the warm)...
The close-up's of AR2813 are my favs - even though decaying as it nears the limb.
Cheers
Terry (in the warm)...
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Re: Calcium Sun - 6th April
Lovely captures Mark, your experiments are paying off. I managed some cak imaging between the clouds too.
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Lunt 60mm Double Stack HA
80ed WL+ Lunt Hershal Wedge + Badder K-Line filter.
100mm AR + Lunt b1800 Ca-K module.
Neq6 Eq Mount.
2.7m Pulsar Dome.
11in Celestron SCT + White Light Filter.
70mm AR Stellavue.
12inch OO Newtonian.
Eq8 r Pro Mount.
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Re: Calcium Sun - 6th April
Great work Mark ,well done. I looked at your hi res images and noticed some very faint proms in the background that is some amazing detail that you have captured.
Martin
Martin
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Re: Calcium Sun - 6th April
Thanks everyone for the kind words and the SPoD!
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Re: Calcium Sun - 6th April
Super set of images, great to see the spicule fringe and proms. Which telecentrics/barlows were yo using for the closeups?
John
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Re: Calcium Sun - 6th April
Very nice Mark. The small spots show up very well too!
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- marktownley
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Re: Calcium Sun - 6th April
Thanks everyone for the kind comments!
I used the Airylab 2.79x telecentric John, I find it just as good in CaK as in Ha. For the f46 closeups in addition to the Airylab I used the nose of a 2x cemax barlow on the shortest c-mount have, which gives a 1.6x magnification factor. I have another barlow nose peice which when used on the shortest c-max gives an additional 1.25x magnification factor which should take me up to about f35. It's just about finding the ideal combos for the different conditions...
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Re: Calcium Sun - 6th April
Great images, Mark. Which scope,TAL or Bresser ?
Raf
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Re: Calcium Sun - 6th April
Thanks Raf, it was the Tal on this occasion. I think it is a superb performer (even at full aperture) in CaK. The Bresser has delivered the goods so far but is difficult to compare as for me the increase in aperture steps above the usual summit of my seeing conditions. What is apparent though is they both let through incredibly similar amounts of light, both running at f10, which is good.
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Re: Calcium Sun - 6th April
Nice set of images Mark !
Can you post some triple stack ones ? Just to have a look at it.
Can you post some triple stack ones ? Just to have a look at it.
Christian Viladrich
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Re: Calcium Sun - 6th April
Hi Christian, i'll take some comparisons for you this weekend.
http://brierleyhillsolar.blogspot.co.uk/
Solar images, a collection of all the most up to date live solar data on the web, imaging & processing tutorials - please take a look!