Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

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Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by Montana »

The weekend was forecast to be glorious and it certainly was, we had lunch out in the garden both days!! and it is only February! lots of wildlife has awoken with buds and blossom bursting, butterflies and bumble bees. I now fear if it goes sharply back to winter in March they will all be in trouble. I even found some frogspawn in the local pond this afternoon.

Anyway, Saturday dawned and it was clear, well sort of, full of contrails and white haze. So I decided that maybe the C11 wasn't worth trying out and I did want to see the big filament so I set up the Solarscope DSF-100. So I decided to try out my new camera ASI174M and try that out instead. At the moment my Grasshopper 3 is running at only 4fps and it is really annoying me. If I start up Firecapture, close down, unplug, start up again about 10 times I finally can get a run at 26fps. I thought that my USB3 socket was failing as it kept saying that it was running at USB2 speed. However, I tried the ASI174M and I can get up to 220fps in ROI no problem in Firecapture and in that same USB3 socket, so that rules that out.

I tried taking a full disc with the Solarscope but the resolution is very poor with the large pixel size of the camera. So I won't show it. I then used the 1.6x with the ASI and that was much better, but still not a patch on the level of detail I get with the Grasshopper. I really need to get the Grasshopper working and reserve that for full discs. So here is the full disc, probably better if you click on the link and view in Flickr. Seeing was very poor so I can't rule that out either.

Image2019-02-23 1-5x f colour by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

Image2019-02-23 1-5x by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

I then moved on to a 2x Barlow and the ASI174 seemed to really excel at this scale and considering the seeing was dire I was very pleased with the results. It is also interesting that using the 1.6x barlow the little tiny AR to the bottom left of the main region was very bright (plage), as soon as I added the 2x Balow all the bright plage disappeared as though this Barlow takes the Solarscope off band slightly? weird!

ImageSun_105207_23_02_2019 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

ImageSun_105207_23_02_2019 f colour by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

Sunday, this was forecast to be better than Saturday so I had the C11 cooling in the garden. However it was thick fog until 11am, so I just had a very small gap to set up. Again the sky was very white and hazy but very calm. I thought I wouldn't stress and just have fun. So I spent ages with the hubby getting the telescope balanced, then with the new ERF on, getting that balanced too. We got there in the end.

ImageCeleston C11 / Aries ERF / Lunt CaK wedge by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

ImageCeleston C11 / Aries ERF / Lunt CaK wedge by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

I then spent the next 30-45minutes desperately trying to find focus. I always hate this bit when trying new kit out. Finally I worked out that I had to have the Lunt wedge directly attached to the C11 and in as far as it can possibly go in. So it only just works. Seeing at 12-1pm over houses with white skies was never going to bring glorious shots but I did manage some images so I was extremely happy. I think they are far better than my TEC140 has ever produced with the Lunt CaK wedge :)

ImageSun_124746_24_02_2019 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

ImageSun_124746_24_02_2019 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

So a fun filled weekend and I feel very happy that everything seems to be working OK.
Alexandra


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Re: Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by bart1805 »

Wow, that is a nice and sunny weekend. That Celestron is really impressive!
Had the same today with my PGR, 26 was my framerate too. I removed firecapture. Downloaded the new SDK. Installed FC again and got it all working.


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Re: Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by marktownley »

Great shots Alexandra! I think we must have been taking the same closeup shots at the same time ;) The new kit seems to be working well!


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Re: Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by marktownley »

bart1805 wrote: Sun Feb 24, 2019 7:19 pm Wow, that is a nice and sunny weekend. That Celestron is really impressive!
Had the same today with my PGR, 26 was my framerate too. I removed firecapture. Downloaded the new SDK. Installed FC again and got it all working.
The latest SDK is the key, I did the same at the end of last week. Deleted the old one and installed the new one.


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Re: Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by krakatoa1883 »

Great H-alfa images, Alexandra, really impressive, your Solarscope is a winner!


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Re: Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by Bob Yoesle »

Very nice images Alexandra, especially H alpha!

I think we need to get Valery or Baader to address making a CaK spherical aberration corrector for the SCT, and the results will be even better!
SCT perfromance.jpg
SCT perfromance.jpg (179.89 KiB) Viewed 2127 times


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Re: Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by Astrophil »

Simply gorgeous images, Alexandra.

Phil


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Re: Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by ffellah »

Looks like you had a nice session, Alexandra ! The filament close up came out really well.

Franco :bow


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Re: Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by MalVeauX »

Super captures!

Very best,


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Re: Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by xn44 »

Congratulations ! :P


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Re: Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by MapleRidge »

Hi Alexandra...

Your Ha images are superb...rally love these FD shots, and the C11 CaK is very impressive...can't wait to see the results under better conditions.

Well done :bow

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Re: Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by Valery »

Alexandra, congratulations with 11" + ARIES DERF first light!

Here is my take of the CaK image.

Next time try to stop down your telescope with 240mm mask and use TV 2.5x PowerMate to get better scale.
Also, for CaK image a ZWO ASI290MM camera is a must.

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Re: Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by Valery »

Bob Yoesle wrote: Sun Feb 24, 2019 8:17 pm Very nice images Alexandra, especially H alpha!

I think we need to get Valery or Baader to address making a CaK spherical aberration corrector for the SCT, and the results will be even better!

SCT performance.jpg
Oh... I thinked about this many times already, but I am afraid there are too few potential clients for such a corrector. Of course, Venus imagers with their 12" and 14" SCTs may also be interested in this corrector, but I am not sure. Small series custom orders always expensive.
I need at least 50 clients to make this corrector profitable with a retail price of about $500. And it must have at least 3x power (to realize it's full potential in resolution) and coma corrected. HD scopes will need another corrector.


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Re: Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by george9 »

Just curious, can shifting the focus in either direction (i.e., pushing the primary mirror in or out) offset some of the spherical aberration in CaK? It would be a lucky coincidence if so. Or is there any stock item (eg, a Barlow) that has a roughly opposite aberration at this frequency that can be employed here? Again would be a lucky coincidence.

George


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Re: Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by Carbon60 »

An excellent set of images, Alexandra. Fabulous FDs.

That’s a heck of a nice ERF cell on you C11 ;)

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Re: Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by MAURITS »

Very nice images Alexandra ...


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Re: Weekend of fun in the sun with lots of new equipment

Post by Montana »

Thanks everyone for all the nice comments, tips and tricks :)

Yes Stuart, it is a heck of a nice ERF cell :lol:
Alexandra


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