Had some decent morning weather today after some storms this week. Seeing was poor this morning and eventually fell apart so I wasn't able to do much in Calcium as the morning progressed so settled on a full disc there. AR3685 has a lovely penumbra series and AR3679 and its friends have lots of interesting things going on near the limb. There was a fantastic filaprom pushing out into the corona on the Southern Eastern limb, which I imagine will lift off soon. North of the equator near the Western limb there's a really large chromosphere network patch with a huge expansive filament series and plages despite no AR.
B&W:
False Colored:
Equipment:
I have been playing around with a new scope for full discs, slowly working into adapting it for HA, but haven't done that yet. It currently is doing calcium and photosphere images and I'm happy with how the optics perform in near UV along with filter performance at F12. So I've been using the AT102ED (102mm F7 ED) since its a fantastic budget scope, regardless of being ED, but it's a wonderful full disc scope at 60mm F12 when masked. I plan to do a cap for it soon to allow mounting of front mounted etalons on it, to complete the system as a full disc imaging scope in tri-band. Not there yet, but soon. Just wanted to confirm its performance in near UV as that sets the tone before moving forward. It seems great in CaK so far.
I also wanted to try a different tilter, by Player One, the Solar Fast Tilter (SFT). It's a simplified device but drastically easier to adjust than typical discs with bolts and needing a wrench, etc. I like it so far. Align it with the longest dimension of the sensor, adjust up and down, rotate as needed. Super easy. Kind of pricey, but so much easier to adjust real time.
Continuum:
150mm F8 Doublet -> Focuser -> Baader 2" Wedge -> 2" Continuum Filter -> 2" ND3.0 Filter -> 1.83x barlow -> IMX290 Sensor
60mm F12 Doublet (AT102ED masked to 60mm) -> Focuser -> Baader 2" Wedge -> 2" Continuum Filter -> 2" ND3.0 Filter -> IMX253 Sensor
Calcium:
60mm F12 Doublet (AT102ED masked to 60mm) -> Focuser -> Lunt CaK B1200 Module -> IMX253 Sensor
H-alpha:
Aries Triband D-ERF -> 150mm F8 Doublet -> Focuser -> Baader 2" Filter (DERF #2) -> Air Spaced Etalon 1 -> Baader Telecentric TZ4 4x -> Air Spaced Etalon 2 -> 18mm Blocking Filter -> Tilter -> IMX432 Sensor
Lunt 60 Modular + Lunt LS50FHa Double Stack -> 18mm Blocking Filter -> IMX253 Sensor
- Solarsetup_Discs_05212024.jpg (245.07 KiB) Viewed 788 times
- Solarsetup_SFT_05212024.jpg (146.31 KiB) Viewed 788 times
Very best,
