Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

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marktownley
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Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by marktownley »

I decided to take the plunge and get a sodium quark; i've only had it since the start of the week but are pleased so far. The image is bright visually and i'm getting short exposure time. I haven't had much time to play around with the tuner, but doesn't seem to be much of a variance in view either side of centre position. The view is subtly different to white light - in wl the granulation has quite defined cell boundaries whereas here the boundaries seem more diffuse but also to have more depth. Plage is fairly apparent, more so than wl. Anyway a shot mid disk first, notice the pores associated with an area of relic plage that was visible in Ha and CaK.

Imagepores-na.-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Imagepores-na.-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

The new active region was easy.

Imagear12710-na-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Imagear12710-na-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Both taken with the 60mm f6 scope with the PGR Ch3. I have been imaging lately, check out my website, but have been so busy with work i've struggled to get everything posted up here. Looking forward to trying the Na filter with the HaT as this is in the passband of it's ERF.

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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by Carbon60 »

Nice. I've been thinking about one of these for a while, but so far I've resisted taking the plunge. The results look really promising. It will be interesting to see the results with a larger aperture scope, especially when there's a large sunspot group to image.

Cheers

Stu.


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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by marktownley »

Thanks Stu! Might be a while before there's a big spot again, but will certainly be fun playing around with the larger apertures.


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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by Valery »

marktownley wrote: Wed May 23, 2018 6:43 am Thanks Stu! Might be a while before there's a big spot again, but will certainly be fun playing around with the larger apertures.
Mark, have you applied a flat field?


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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by marktownley »

No flat Valery, you can see the dust bunnies if you look carefully in the same place on both images. It has a very well illuminated and even fov.


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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by Valery »

marktownley wrote: Wed May 23, 2018 9:08 am No flat Valery, you can see the dust bunnies if you look carefully in the same place on both images. It has a very well illuminated and even fov.
Thanks. I think that it will be better if Day Star use such a uniform mica crystalls for more important H-a Quarks where the evenness of the FOV is MUCH MUCH more important than in almost featurless Sodium and Magnesium lines. This is IMHO, of course.


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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by marktownley »

Thanks guys, it is quite a subtle difference from the white light Ewan, both visually and on screen, i'm hoping that larger apertures show the structure better.


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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by Ewan »

Nice 'test' set Mark, I couldn't bring myself to buy one of these since they arrived.
I couldn't really see the benefit over WL if i'm honest, swings & roundabouts I guess.
Atb


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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by ffellah »

Very nice first results, Mark. I was thinking about one too, but I am glad to see your images before deciding for one. It would be nice to see what results you get using the HaT and this sodium Quark.

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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by pedro »

Interesting first light Mark. Please keep us posted when you try it with the HaT


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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by Montana »

Very interesting! now I understand the use of an expensive Quark for WL :) I will be very interested to see hi res in this :hamster:

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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by Derek Klepp »

Nice shot,s Mark and Valery a valid point.


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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by krakatoa1883 »

Interesting images, Mark, sodium quark seems a useful addition to the solar observer equipment. I look forward to see some high res images.


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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by Valery »

They'd better make Quarks Ca II I (8542,1A ) where one can image the sun with
details which look like an impressive mixture of Ca-K and H-a.


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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by Carbon60 »

A lot of interest then, Mark. We're all waiting to see some hi res images. No pressure ;)

Stu.


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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by marktownley »

Well i'm just about to head off on the barge for 10 days so will be a couple of weeks. Strange how the weather has broke when there's new solar gear around ;) I have a few more images to have a look at from the other day so maybe a few more pics yet...


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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by mdwmark »

Hi Mark,
Working with Na, you will find there is a very small window where you have a increase of contrast. They advertiser it to be 0.5Ang. If you can keep it in the center of the line at .5Ang Hw(F/40). This is the maximum Hw were the cells will still be highlighted. The Hw really need to be in the .25Ang range for Na. At that point the cells look like they are drawn with a sharp pencil. Your main problem is that a non-TEC controlled oven will drift off band in a short time. I learned this 25+ years ago when I made there first Na filter for the original DayStar.
I would lower the set point and let the heat of the solar image bring the band pass on band. Even that may push the band pass into the red wing. This all depends at what temperature is required to be on band. So play with the set point and see what you can get.
Mark W.


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Re: Messing With a Sodium Quark - 22nd May

Post by marktownley »

Thanks Mark, interesting to know and will certainly give me something to experiment with.


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