Steve Ward

Very hasty session in poor seeing ...  

That's a proper 'Sun'day mate ... 

4 minutes ago, Stu said:

@Steve Ward just for my understanding, am I right in thinking this is out together using data off Helioviewer, not from your own data? I doubt the clouds would cooperate enough to allow you to do it but wouldn’t it be nice if they did!!

The clue is stamped on the video Stu ... the data is from the SDO/HMI Continuum stream , all the SDO wavelengths are available to download and play with.

I'd do well to capture 24 hours a day even if the weather co-operated ... 😆

4 minutes ago, Stu said:

Nice ones Steve. Looks like the seeing wasn’t as good today?.

On the contrary Stu , it was lovely and stady up there .

I just spent too long harvesting full disc frames and the clouds returned just as I got the 174 plugged in so the close-up was just 60 rough frames , there was nigh on as much detail in the full disc from the 2000D ... 😆

Another early grab in the sliver of clear sky between the rain ... 😉

My capture of this week's star of the show taken on the 8th July.

Evostar 150 + Altair 174mm.

Another lovely session , little quicker today as there was only a brief sliver of blue.

Thanks Pete , it's a monster sure enough ... 😙

Well that was a proper session on a glorious summer day ... 

And a montage of close-ups , I think I got everything ... 😉

More playing camera-wise , chucked the 90D on today , the biggun was a little further round than NASA/SDO showed ... 

Dreadful seeing so not a great test , but better than yesterday's offering at least ... 😉

One frame more than I should have got to be honest , but it was nice to say goodbye to the monster AR before it slips from view ... 😏

Quick grab in the small clear patch that lined itself up for me ... 

Well having at long last got to play with the new Altair 174MM Hypercam I'm very pleased with its first taste of sunshine .

A collection of close-ups from the 2nd July , all slightly different settings as I was finding my feet , and an AS!3 2x Resampled offering in the middle.

Finally got to play properly with the Altair Hypercan 174MM Fan-cooled camera ... 

Thanks to the "must have the latest tech" folks there are some fantastic DSLR deals around as loads turn to mirrorless systems ... 😉

I've just snapped up an EOS 6D with only 16,000 on the clock for £220 for my whitelight solar imaging on the Evostar 150 ... 

WEX , MPB and Park Cameras are well worth checking on a regular basis ... 

1 hour ago, Mr Spock said:

It went again there for a while. But it's back, and back, and back 

It's still a bit hit and miss here Michael .

Even as recently as 10 minutes ago I've just been greeted with a page teling me the site doesn't exist ... forgot to screenshot it but if it goes again I'll do so next time.

Thanks for al the hard work you continue to do for us all.

Regards ,

Steve.

9 minutes ago, russ said:

Superb. Great images. I have the scope setup but all i have is cloud and wind.

Thanks Russ ,

Looking at Sat24 I'd say you'll be under blue very soon ... 😏

What a difference a day makes ... 😉

No description regarding conditions necessary , a picture paints a thousand words ... 😄

Interestingly it's not that ... the striations appear in most of the frames upon inspection ... ?

It may have something to do with the dreadful seeing that day , very hot and humid with very rapid shimmering I recall , on first look at the full disc shots a lot of them showed half of the long region relatively sharp and the other side near invisible and vice versa .

A single uncropped , unstacked frame.

2 hours ago, Rusted said:

Is it just me or are all the "close-ups" striated diagonally?
Particularly noticeable when scrolling.

I'm guessing that it's due to the drift I'm getting at the moment (like walking noise in deep sky images) as I haven't polar-aligned since moving back to my old home , and that's the direction of drift at the moment with my "pick it up , carry it out and plonk it down" set-up ... 😆

Now I've replaced the focuser and attached the focus motor to the shiny new one PA is my next task , when I get a cloud free night which looks like not until the weekend.

Very glad to have captured the new AR that has grown incredibly overnight , had 24 sharp frames to stack but as you can see I had stacking issues thanks to the clouds in every frame.

Can't always be blessed with clear blue , a quick animation here of the frames I was working with ... 😆

2 hours ago, Pete Presland said:

Excellent start with the 150mm, definitely more than a hint of granulation.  What did you use for the close up steve?

I just popped a 2x Barlow in the mix that luckily covered the more interesting bits ... 😏