David Smith

Nice pair Dave, if you'll pardon the expression

Wow, busy morning. Great set as usual Michael.

Nicely done Dave. Weather not playing ball here 😢

Love the "concentric prom ring" Ca-K / HA comparison.

The weather certainly is a challenge. See you've not lost your touch though, great set.

Great set of images!

Cracking disk, well done.

Nice clear blue skies this morning and no work for a few days. A little breezy but at least that helps the seeing a bit. A few clouds skipping around but I managed to grab 3 full disks and a big prom too. Actually starting to remember how I used to process these.

Finally the prom in both Ca-K and HA

So lovely and flat 😍

Super images!

I see you've not lost your touch Steve, great images.

Thanks Dave

Hi All

Been away for a while and not done any solar imaging since last October 😧 hence the title. The Sun is too low to image until the end of February and then it rained all March! So I couldn't resist a look yesterday with wall-to-wall blue skies. Managed to grab 6 pane full disk images in 3 lights (WL, HA & Ca-K) plus a nice big prom in Hydrogen Alpha. Enjoy, hopefully more to come if the weather allows.

Day 2 of solar today, quite a bit more cloud about today so multi-pane mosaics were definitely off the agenda. Also quite a strong breeze, not good with a scope that's best part of a meter long! Still managed some half-decent captures in white light and H alpha. Ca-K was a challenge as the seeing was very poor at 393.4nm.

First up a demonstration of why I did not shoot pano disks today

Conditions changed in the few seconds between shooting the left and right panes leaving one side markedly brighter than the other. Still, I figured there was enough detail to be worth sharing. If anyone has any tips on how to "equalise" the panes of a mosaic in post-processing I'd be very interested!

Had more success in H alpha although in hind sight I should have taken flats

Quite please with this one, the inverted colours really make the features stand out. Liked it so much I tried it on the other H alpha shot

Not the sharpest image ever but given that it was taken at 3000mm focal length on a windy day I am pretty happy with it.

Finally a couple of white lights below which were also shot at the same 3000mm focal length.

24 minutes ago, symmetal said:

Great images David despite the bit missing. The first two images are both labelled Hydrogen alpha though. 😊

Alan

Well spotted!

Rare purely because they don't work, see example below   Apart from my apparent brain-lapse whilst capturing H alpha (captured 2 x top right segment and missed bottom right altogether) it was a nice session. Seeing was not bad at all and I managed to get setup so that the laptop and I were mostly in shade, which was nice

Grabbed these last weekend but kind of forgot about the data until the Sun came out this morning!

Might just have to give one of these a try. At the moment I just use a hoody to cover my laptop whilst imaging, suspect this would be a big improvement.

On 25/04/2022 at 17:55, Paz said:

 I spent over an hour pretty much non stop under this hood observing, which is a very long time for me and I came out cool and relaxed as if I had just been watching TV whereas an hour of solar would normally leave me looking and feeling like a kebab.

know that feeling

8 minutes ago, Steve Ward said:

The close ups are great mate , and the disc is circular ... what more can you ask on a day like this ... 🤣

You have a point there!

Well I tried! Ultimately too much moving / changing cloud for a white light mosaic. Clouded over completely before I could get any Ca-K or HA. Close ups not bad I suppose.

Great set Steve. Curious, is your Tak the F/5.9 version?

Lots of sunshine yesterday so got a good session in but held off processing in favour of making the most of the weather. Seeing was up and down as it was lunch time by the time I got out there, so these are not the sharpest set of images but neither are they the worst! Managed a full disk in all 3 lights although the H Alpha version is a little soft in the middle as I was struggling with the seeing by that point

Close ups were tough due to seeing although the white lights came out well and the Ca-K's not too shabby either

Nothing but and more here so well done for finding the Sun

Thanks Dave, only done 2 or 3 sessions myself to be honest. Just shaking off the rust!

Good to see you imaging solar again Dave.