11-26-22 Observations. Orion70 back in operation!

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DeepSolar64
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11-26-22 Observations. Orion70 back in operation!

Post by DeepSolar64 »

My session time was from 15:55 until 17:03 UTC. The skies were mostly clear and the seeing was a bit above average. The temperature was 57F ( 13.8C ). Friday night I got the replacement focuser in for the Orion70 which was damaged in a fall last week. The focuser went on with few issues. It did not line up quite horizontally on the tube due to the mounting holes not lining up on the tube and focuser and I had to drill out the holes in the focuser to get the screws in but In the end it worked fine. This focuser seems to be a bit smoother and less " soft " in action than the original stock focuser. While overall the AT72EDII is the better scope, it's sturdier built and is a two ED glass APO doublet and uses the Altair wedge for WL solar, it's actually quite amazing how close the cheap little Orion70 comes to it. It has about 90 percent the performance! This is only on solar of course, the fixed glass filter over the objective makes it a dedicated solar instrument and even if it could do nighttime the ED doublet objective of the AT scope would make it a sure winner there. The very slight greenish filter, it's almost white, I think helps reduce the CA a bit in the Orion70 and if I use the Baader 540nm filter there is no CA at all. The AT72EDII needs no filter to reduce the CA for it has none that I have even been able to see. The main thing I like about the Orion70 is that it's very light weight, which is less than half that of the AT72EDII with the wedge and that makes it super portable making both it and the mount/tripod easy to carry together. With the exception of the Lunt SUNoculars the Orion70 is my most portable instrument. And it's back in use!

This little scope is no longer available. Lunt once carried it until they started to carry their multi-purpose MT line of scopes and Orion stopped carrying it when they acquired Meade and thus Coronado with it's multi-purpose SolarMax III line. I guess they thought the cheap little scope might just compete against their expensive counterparts and killed the instrument. The closest to it that I have found to it anywhere since is the little 50mm Celestron EclipSmart Travel Solarscope. Last year it was $99.99 USD. It's went up to $129.95 at the current time unless one can find a dealer that's running a holiday deal on it. Cheap can be bad...But not always.

https://www.celestron.com/products/ecli ... -telescope


Coronado SolarMax II 60 DS. 16x, 25x and 33x ( HA )
Today I could clearly see six active plages in the Ha chromosphere. A seventh could be marginally seen as a ruffling in the chromosphere but it can hardly be called an " active region ". Three plages could be seen in the northern hemisphere. Two of these are numbered on the BBSO SM image. Three systems can be seen in the southern hemisphere and all three of these have NOAA numbers on the BBSO SM image.

I could see two plages in the NE quadrant. AR13152 is the brightest one but still is fairly small. SW of it lies another plage but it's small and it's contrast is low. Immediately to the east the chromosphere looks a bit rough. I think something is going on there. An easier plage with a spot at it's NW end is associated with AR13149 in the NW quadrant. The spot is best seen by off tuning a bit. A filament is noticed east of AR13149.

The SW quadrant shows three active regions. AR13147 was seen as a spot and plage. An easy filament was seen SW of the region. SE of AR13147 lies AR13151. It's an elongated plage that touches the plage of AR13147 to it's NW. Two easy filaments were seen south of AR13151. AR13148 was seen as a plage NW of these filaments and SW of AR13151. Another filament can be seen NE of AR13151. I don't see any plages in the SE quadrant but I do see an easy plage near the CLM just SE of the disc's center. Three more easy filaments lie in the far east.

I did notice a few proms around the limb. Four are together on the SE limb. I did see a few more but I did not pay much attention to them.

The spicule mottles of the chromosphere are visible as usual.


Orion 70mm Solar Telescope! 25x, 50x and 62.5x. ( WL )
I could see Seven regions of activity on the WL photosphere today. Four in the northern hemisphere with two being numbered on the SolarMonitor images. All three in the southern hemisphere are numbered systems.

AR13152 in the NE quadrant was seen as an elongated collection of 6 spots and pores. East of AR13152 I could see a patch of faculae. This marks the area of rough chromosphere seen in Ha! Well SW of AR13152 I see a larger lone pore. It marks where I saw a small plage in Ha. The NW quadrant shows AR13149 as a medium sized structured spot. A pore is seen just to it's east. 62.5x reveals two tiny pores between the larger spot and the larger eastern pore. I could see some faculae in the area.

AR13147 in the SW quadrant was seen as a structured spot with a small spot just to it's east. Faint faculae surround them. SE of AR13147 lies AR13151. It's visible as a grouping of eight small spots/pores. It looks like only one misshapen spot and the rest is pores, some difficult to see, I see no faculae here. I could see AR13148 SW of AR13151 near the limb as a patch of faculae. SDOHMIc4K images show two pores here and one is large, maybe big enough to be considered a small spot and somehow I missed it when I saw other pores on the disc actually smaller. I seen this on the SDO images after the session was complete and wondered WTF how did I miss this!? :roll: SDO HMI continuum and GONG WLAI also shows some low contrast faculae in the SE quadrant and I missed that too! :mad: On the plus side the fine solar granulation was easily visible across the disc today.

I hope everyone is having a fine weekend.

James


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Lunt 8x32 SUNoculars
Orion 70mm Solar Telescope
Celestron AstroMaster Alt/Az Mount
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 60 DS
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 90 DS
Meade Coronado AZS Alt/Az Mount
Astro-Tech AT72EDII with Altair solar wedge
Celestron NexStar 102GT with Altair solar wedge
Losmandy AZ8 Alt/Az Mount
Sky-Watcher AZGTI Alt-Az GoTo mount
Cameras: ZWO ASI178MM, PGR Grasshopper, PGR Flea
Lunt, Coronado, TeleVue, Orion and Meade eyepieces

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Re: 11-26-22 Observations. Orion70 back in operation!

Post by marktownley »

Good report James, thanks. Glad the little Orion is back up and running again.


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Re: 11-26-22 Observations. Orion70 back in operation!

Post by DeepSolar64 »

Thanks Mark. Good Morning. It’s raining 🌧️ outside here.


Lunt 8x32 SUNoculars
Orion 70mm Solar Telescope
Celestron AstroMaster Alt/Az Mount
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 60 DS
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 90 DS
Meade Coronado AZS Alt/Az Mount
Astro-Tech AT72EDII with Altair solar wedge
Celestron NexStar 102GT with Altair solar wedge
Losmandy AZ8 Alt/Az Mount
Sky-Watcher AZGTI Alt-Az GoTo mount
Cameras: ZWO ASI178MM, PGR Grasshopper, PGR Flea
Lunt, Coronado, TeleVue, Orion and Meade eyepieces

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Re: 11-26-22 Observations. Orion70 back in operation!

Post by MAURITS »

Thanks for the report James, good news about the little Orion.


Regards,
Maurits

Vista del Cielo Observatory

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Re: 11-26-22 Observations. Orion70 back in operation!

Post by ffellah »

Thank you for the report and the link to the 50mm solar scope, James.

Franco


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Re: 11-26-22 Observations. Orion70 back in operation!

Post by rigel123 »

👍🏻👍🏻


Warren

Lunt LS60T DS
Orion ED80T CF
Meade ETX LS6
Lunt CaK BF1200
Lunt WL Wedge
Baader Photographic Film
ASI174MM
Skyris 236M
Player One Saturn-M SQR

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DeepSolar64
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Re: 11-26-22 Observations. Orion70 back in operation!

Post by DeepSolar64 »

Thanks and welcomes everyone. The only weakness I see with the little Celestron solarscope is that it probably has a plastic focuser. But at that price if it lasted just a few years it would be worth it. Think about it, people buy thousand-dollar smartphones and most replace them in 2 years!! And someone could replace the focuser if they wish though a high quality focuser would cost more than the scope would. The mount is probably not the best but one could easily mount the little scope on a better one. My point is for so little money it would be a good quick view scope on those less than perfect days. And one VERY easy to carry around. It’s not a Takahashi or TeleVue but it would probably get the visual job done.


Lunt 8x32 SUNoculars
Orion 70mm Solar Telescope
Celestron AstroMaster Alt/Az Mount
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 60 DS
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 90 DS
Meade Coronado AZS Alt/Az Mount
Astro-Tech AT72EDII with Altair solar wedge
Celestron NexStar 102GT with Altair solar wedge
Losmandy AZ8 Alt/Az Mount
Sky-Watcher AZGTI Alt-Az GoTo mount
Cameras: ZWO ASI178MM, PGR Grasshopper, PGR Flea
Lunt, Coronado, TeleVue, Orion and Meade eyepieces

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Re: 11-26-22 Observations. Orion70 back in operation!

Post by DeepSolar64 »

" Nifty Fifty " I like that!!


Lunt 8x32 SUNoculars
Orion 70mm Solar Telescope
Celestron AstroMaster Alt/Az Mount
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 60 DS
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 90 DS
Meade Coronado AZS Alt/Az Mount
Astro-Tech AT72EDII with Altair solar wedge
Celestron NexStar 102GT with Altair solar wedge
Losmandy AZ8 Alt/Az Mount
Sky-Watcher AZGTI Alt-Az GoTo mount
Cameras: ZWO ASI178MM, PGR Grasshopper, PGR Flea
Lunt, Coronado, TeleVue, Orion and Meade eyepieces

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Re: 11-26-22 Observations. Orion70 back in operation!

Post by Montana »

Thanks James, I'm glad you are back up and running again :hamster: I like the KSO CaK image, have you coloured and sharpened this one? I really like the colour.

Alexandra


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DeepSolar64
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Re: 11-26-22 Observations. Orion70 back in operation!

Post by DeepSolar64 »

Alexandra. Yes I colored and sharpened the KSO image. I liked it also. I set it as the desktop background for my Windows PC. I have adopted the KSO as a primary source of CaK data especially since I cannot yet do CaK myself.


Lunt 8x32 SUNoculars
Orion 70mm Solar Telescope
Celestron AstroMaster Alt/Az Mount
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 60 DS
Meade Coronado SolarMax II 90 DS
Meade Coronado AZS Alt/Az Mount
Astro-Tech AT72EDII with Altair solar wedge
Celestron NexStar 102GT with Altair solar wedge
Losmandy AZ8 Alt/Az Mount
Sky-Watcher AZGTI Alt-Az GoTo mount
Cameras: ZWO ASI178MM, PGR Grasshopper, PGR Flea
Lunt, Coronado, TeleVue, Orion and Meade eyepieces

Image Visual Observer
" Way more fun to see it! "
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