May 25 2021 AR12824 Ha C11

[LeoD]

Hi all,

in addition to my previous post from May 22, which caused even some polemic regarding seeing opportunities for large apertures, as mine 280mm, I just want to share another session with C11 on May 25, in the morning, when seeing was 2.5-3" and I wanted already to shut down at once, and until noon when the clouds came up and gave me a chance to catch a moment with calm air. The SSM diagram shows one of the good seeing windows about 0.8" with the marked moment of shooting and the forecast from meteoblue.com, as well as with an even better window of opportunities that I missed ((
So the conclusion based on my humble experience is: being armed with SSM and the seeing forecast, it is worth spending more time on our favorite hobby
Setup: ARIES 280mm D-ERF +C11+UV/IR+QuarkChromo+0.5x Daystar reducer+ASI174MM, AiryLab SSM
Scene: AR12824, 12:08 UTC+3

regards
Leo

[EGRAY_OBSERVATORY]

The red/fiery capture is brilliant Leo.

Thanks for sharing

Terry

[p_zetner]

Amazing results, Leo!
Cheers.
Peter

[H-Alpha]

Fantastic Leo!!!!

And thanks for bringing back the issue of SSM and MeteoBlue.
For me MeteoBlue was rarely in agreement with SSM so far. SSM is a very good tool as you suggest, but I think I will stop looking at MeteoBlue... Unless someone can explain to me better how it works. The only useful thing in there is the Jetsream speed, I think. This is somewhat reliable The 3 'seeing' columns make no sense to me. And several times I have everything Green, with very low Jetstream speeds and the 'arc sec' is some 1.8!!! (or often the opposite). How is it possible? Any comment is very welcome.

Even the SSM measurement is not very well correlated to image quality... But it is a good first index, I think, with my limited experience. I am taking a lot of measurements the last months (and I am making correlations), trying to understand better.

That said, if anyone knows how to get a good index of image quality it would be very useful. PIPP exports that in its logs, but unfortunately it provides a time offset that stops at the first decimal for its frame, so many frames of a capture have the same time offset... :-(

Autostakkert! gives a quality estimation on its image window, but I didn't succeed to export it to a log :-( I asked the author of the software if he could help or include it in a new version, but have no answer yet.

So anyone who can propose a software that can export quality image for each frame of a capture, would help a lot!

Best wishes,
Alexandros

[Valery]

Excellent image, Leo. Looks like the SSM is a real helper in hunting for the seeing and that a good enough seeing happens even in such a place like Moskow at a noon and at the sunny side of a building.


Valery

[DeepSolar64]

The red/fiery capture is brilliant Leo.

Thanks for sharing

Terry

I love the natural red coloration too!

[Valtori]

Very beautiful shot, Leo!

Val

[christian viladrich]

Excellent ! Patience pays.

[Montana]

A real beauty Leo, well done

How many days of sunshine do you get per year?
I think I might get one observing day per month at best on average.

Alexandra

[eroel]

Leo:
Super images.
best regards.
Eric.

[Valery]

I think I might get one observing day per month at best on average.

Alexandra

Here is the data for London.

Monthly data.

Month Sunny days, partly Cloudy, overcast
January 5 11/15
February 5 8/15
March 8 9/14
April 9 11/10
May 8 11/12
June 7 11/12
July 10 11/11
August 7 15/9
September 9 12/9
October 7 11/13
November 5 11/14
December 5 11/15

Not perfect, but not a one day per month.


Valery

[MAURITS]

Excellent images Leo.

[Montana]

Thanks Valery, however I don't live in sunny London. I live in cloudy Cheshire (Manchester). I also only have 9 -10 possible observing days per month (Saturdays and Sundays) so those 2 days a week have to be sunny. The chances are very low. The last observing day I had was the 1st May and that was a 10 minute gap between rain. If I had sunshine every day it would be great but the chances for me are so low I have to maximise every hour. I was interested to know how many tries Leo gets per month to get a great image

Alexandra

[Stardust5858]

Lovely capture Leo, thanks for sharing.

[Montana]

I found this which made me laugh, look at the pathetic days of sunshine in August, just 6 days. Try getting them to coincide with a Saturday and Sunday I need to move to Moscow

Sunshine days in Manchester.PNG (92.52 KiB) Viewed 417 times

Alexandra

[LeoD]

Thanks to all for your kind words and comments!

To Alexandros: I use the same meteoblue first to plan my schedule for solar some days before and then to estimate which aperture to start with. Collecting time by time experience, I consider SSM the most useful tool to control seeing trends and the best moment for imaging quite well. As to me, it's definitely correlated, i.e. must have for hi-res.

To Alexandra: statistics of sunny days in Moscow - 114 days per year, mostly distributed from May to September. From mid-October to the end of December it could be really zero sunny days, the same weather-atlas.com gives from 1h sunshine per day Nov-Jan to 9h Jun-Jul, which data are close to reality. Last 2 years I installed C11 only several times during the summer months (not several per month) according to seeing forecasts, and some of them were in vain. The last days were really lucky, but not a rule.
Alexandra, I wish you take the chance you sure will have in your location as well! And a warm welcome to Moscow!
Clear skies
Leo

[MapleRidge]

Superb capture Leo...well done

Brian

[viewer]

Nice shots, Leo!

I'm sorry for all the bad weather encountered. Inspired me to look up my own data, have clearly had a feeling weather supports solar observing in my area during summer, at least when compared to the overcast winter and night observing. And science supports my experience:



I'm bound to mostly observe during weekends, and with clear/mostly clear at 40% you often get a chance either Saturday or Sunday this time of year. This could compensate for my Bortle 8, the mentioned overcast, the freezing conditions, and the sun low on the sky the other half of the year.