Hydrogen-alpha FD 16th Feb 2021

[Carbon60]

Another one of those frustrating sessions with mostly cloud cover and only small, elusive gaps, but I really wanted to try my new Coronado BF15 on my DS Lunt 60. It took almost an hour of patient waiting and a few aborted attempts before I managed to capture four panes to build up the mosaic

Basler acA1920-155um (IMX 174)
2.5x Powermate
Genika Astro
AS!3
ImPPG
MS ICE
PixInsight

Given the conditions and the rush to image in the gaps (no real time to finesse the tuning) I was really quite pleased with the final result and performance of the new BF. Overall, very promising for when there's a better weather day.

Processed in mono and colour

20210216_Ha_FD_mono by Stuart Green, on Flickr

20210216_Ha_FD_colour by Stuart Green, on Flickr

It's now raining...

Thanks for looking.

Stu.

[marktownley]

That came out really well Stu! That BF15 seems to do the job nicely.

[Carbon60]

Thanks, Mark.
I would never have managed to capture such images under these conditions with the Lunt BF.

Stu.

[marktownley]

It's surprising the difference these small changes can make. I've been dodging rain all day myself, looks like it's going to be the theme for the rest of the week.

[DeepSolar64]

Very nice Stu! I was able to get a few of those filaments today visually.

[EGRAY_OBSERVATORY]

Well done Stu, for a quiet Sun, you certainly showed the filaments very well.

Cheers
Terry

[Stardust5858]

Lovely Stu, well done and thanks for sharing.

[MapleRidge]

Nice sharp image Stu...well done

Brian

[ffellah]

Very nice images, Stu. Not much to do here between rain, snow, cold, etc.

Franco

[Carbon60]

Many thanks, everyone.

I can’t wait for better weather and a more active Sun.

Stu.

[Montana]

I swear there is much more contrast on this disc shot than normal, a good side by side test would be very interesting. Nice work

Alexandra

[Carbon60]

I swear there is much more contrast on this disc shot than normal, a good side by side test would be very interesting. Nice work

Alexandra

Hi Alexandra,

Absolutely. This was the main finding. These are not composite images as the disk and proms were captured at the same time. Usually I have to knock down the gamma setting to bring out the proms, but at the cost of losing contrast on the disk. Here I used the default setting (1 on Genika Astro), which happily showed the proms and disk features quite well.

When eventually we get another sunny morning, I'll be able to refine the tuning and hone the settings to obtain an optimal image. Can't wait.

Some more solar activity would be nice too.

Pouring down again here this morning

Stu.