Sunday Springtime Sunshine 20th March

[marktownley]

Hi All.

Returning home on Sunday, and later in the afternoon skies eventually cleared. The easterly wind meant seeing was never going to be good, but the deep blue sky was definitely better than a milky one!

First off the overviews, and the Ha taken with the Double stack Coronado 90, I still haven't nailed tuning on this, but in the weeks ahead i'll get that sorted.

Ha-FD-DS90-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Ha-FD-DS90-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

For the CaK disk I used the APM 100/800 stopped down to 50mm and things were just about holding up. Some nice spiky CaK jets on the limb...

CaK-FD-DS-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

CaK-FD-DS-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Swapping the camera for the ZWO290mm and using the APM 1.6x telecentric gives the same image scale on both scopes. On the departing limb...

Departing-AR-DS90-290mm-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Departing-AR-DS90-290mm-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

deaprting-active-region-CaK-50mm-f26-290mm-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

deaprting-active-region-CaK-50mm-f26-290mm-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

And on the approaching limb...

Emerging-flux-region-limb-Ds90-290mm-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Emerging-flux-region-limb-Ds90-290mm-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

emerging-spot-CaK-50mm-f26-290mm-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

emerging-spot-CaK-50mm-f26-290mm-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Was nice to get out for a couple of hours in the fresh spring sunshine! Hope you like these.

Mark

[rigel123]

Great shots Mark, first time I have seen spikes in CaK!

[DeepSolar64]

Mark,
I have have been doing Ha for almost three years now and still have trouble with tuning at times. These look good to me. I would be very satisfied with them! Your CaK images always catch my eye.

Blessings,

James

[JochenM]

Looks good, Mark.

Tuning the etalon(s) is always something I find difficult in less than optimal seeing as well. In good conditions, I nail it every time; in mediocre/bad conditions, I do tend to screw it up regularly.

[marktownley]

Thanks guys! The tuning is definitely something I need to tweak with the DS90, I think seeing the laptop screen and being able to tune etalons at the same time is key, I quite like the tall stand Franco has in his recent CaH pics - that could work as a solution...

Here's a few more from the DS90, there were emerging active regions and a nice filament...

emerging-flux-regions-DS90-290mm-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

emerging-flux-regions-DS90-290mm-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Filament-DS90-290mm-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Filament-DS90-290mm-colour by Mark Townley, on Flickr

[ffellah]

A really beautiful set of images, Mark. Very nice to see the CaK jets, never saw them before in Calcium. I may have caught one on Sunday, let’s see what comes out…

Franco

[jacinto]

Very good images of Springtime Sunshine Mark!!!

[Montana]

Great selection of images Mark, they look really good when viewed at full size. I love the CaK full disc with the spike at the limb

Alexandra

[DeepSolar64]

One thing I like about my SMII60 is I can tweak the DS etalon while looking into the eyepiece. I cannot do that with the SMII90. The OTA is too long to reach while at the eyepiece.

[marktownley]

Thanks everyone!

That is the problem with the SM90 and tuning James, it's long enough anyway, but on top of the pier the external etalon is about 7 foot in the air, I do have some plans to remedy this later in the year though...

[DeepSolar64]

Mark. I am curious on how you will solve the problem.

[marktownley]

Mark. I am curious on how you will solve the problem.

Build decking around the base of the pier to bring me closer to the 'top'

But this hasn't been discussed with the person in charge of the garden yet - so as long as said plans incorporate flowers and plants I should be OK...

[ffellah]

James, Mark: there is a solution to easy tuning the SM II second etalon. You have to grow orangutan arms

Franco

[DeepSolar64]

And greenery may help improve your local seeing conditions!!

[marktownley]

The other way is to put a tuning rod on the external etalon like Ken Harrison has with his SM60s.

[DeepSolar64]

How does that work?

[marktownley]

How does that work?

Like this viewtopic.php?t=26903

[arnedanielsen]

A very nice collection of images, Mark!

Best regards,
Arne

[eroel]

Mark:
Very nice session, beautiful CaK spikes.
I have a Solarmax 90-DS, and I use a small MacBook connected to the SKYnyx 2-2 to make the adjustments of the etalons, this way I get the best positions possible.
Best regards.
Eric.

[Montana]

I also do my tuning via a laptop facing me first

Alexandra

[Carbon60]

Great images, Mark. Your calcium images are sublime.

Stu.

[Merlin66]

Like Martin S I’ve now added a motor to the etalon tuner, in fact there’s one on the DS unit as well.
These can be controlled from within the office. Makes things 110% easier.
Highly recommended.

[DeepSolar64]

And of course like everything else I do it the hard way. Turn those little tuning wheels/knobs by hand. :-(

[Petrus]

A wonderful set of Sunday solar images Mark!

[DanielBrousseau]

Beautiful, eager to feel the summer.

[marktownley]

Thanks everyone! Hoping the nice weather we have hangs around all weekend...

[Martin_S]

Hi Mark, this is my remote tuning solution.

Martin

sc.jpg (78.01 KiB) Viewed 582 times

[DeepSolar64]

Ingenious!!

[pedro]

Beautiful images Mark. It helps to use the a false color image to tune the DS etalons. I do it all the time. It works better with good seeing

[Ivan]

Wonderful shots, Mark. Close-ups in Ha are fascinating. I got a lot of pleasure from watching.

Ivan

[marktownley]

Thanks everyone, there are some ingenious solutions as James has said.

I'm too heavy handed for such things, I think I would break them lugging in and out of the case. I had forgot about the false colour feature in FC though thanks Pedro, i've used it before and will have a go again, hopefully on sunday.

[Lagonda]

Nice DS images Mark. CaK is really really nice.

[marios i.]

Beautiful set of images Mark.

[MAURITS]

Great set Mark.

[Geremia Forino]

Wonderfuul images Mark, spikes in CaK are very rarely seen




Geremia