knobby

And Tempest C8 coolers 

well lets hope the weather men are wrong ... they quite often are !

22 hours ago, ArmyAirForce said:

Does anyone have any thoughtschanges length of time to make a video c apture against focal lengths, bearing in mind the speed of Mercury, about 1Mer diameter every three minutes?

I thought of using the morning to do Ha and WL full discs, and then concentrate on just the area around Mercury for the rest of the day. But how long is too long?! On Facebook, I've read as short as 10 seconds of video, and any longer Mercury will be elongated, but that surely all depends on focal length and resolution.

So, anyone have any thoughts on this? 

I read on solar chat that 10-15 seconds is optimum as the sun cahnges Rapidly

On Tuesday, May 03, 2016 at 10:38, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Regarding imaging the event, I think I have settled for a dual scope set-up, imaging the sun in Ca-K with the 80mm F/6, and using my ST80 guide scope with Herschel wedge and Solar Continuum filter (plus IR block). The narrow band of the SC filter will remove all chromatic aberrations. I will either swap the ASI174MM from scope to scope, or attach the ASI174MM to the Ca-K set-up, and the ASI224MM to the ST80 WL and use two cameras. I will see if running two instances of FireCapture gets me into trouble. If so, I will just use two laptops

Quite fancy the mono  224 myself ...

Quick note to anyone using the 2" hole in the end cap of their Dob with solar film, please make sure that not only is the film secured really well but tape (at least) the whole cap onto the ota, they're really easily knocked or blown off and not particularly well fitting .

Bit the bullet, sold my Dob and saved up a bit ... Gone Solar .

Aim for mid gain, adjust shutter speed to  give about 75% histogram, leave gamma at 50 and capture as many frames as you can in about 90 to 120 seconds.

Then have a play with settings to see what works best for you .

My best of the year ...

Astronomy socks ...

Friday looks promising

£2.50 in Aldi ...

Looks nice Adam ! We Essex boys really must do more spending , last purchase was January

Not the answer you're looking for but ... I admire your tenacity and commitment !

Have you tried team celestron? They might be useful

My old 127 in action....

Its quite freaky when the mist rolls in or a layer of cloud pops over ... If its really dark you don't notice the clouds at first ... Then out the corner if your eye its like someone's turned the stars off

I've already commented on this image ... but ! i've just looked at the smugmug linked version on my PC monitor ... speechless

Jaw dropping stuff, well done both of you

Managed to get the whole Moon in frame with the D7100 / C8/ 0.7 reducer combo

Cheers Steve, so far so good on the job front ... not so good on the cloud front though !

The dust is inside the optics ... Just being picky I guess .

Too busy to play, new job starting on Monday

Its here ...

Thankyou FLO, ordered on Sunday, arrives Tuesday and well packed !

Edit ------ not FLOs fault at all but for something this expensive I didn't expect to see dust inside the optics , I'm sure it won't affect its performance but it's a bit sad

Going to stick the Nikon on the end of it? or a new CCD ;-)

Nice...now we need some clear skies to use it ;-)

So excited ... just ordered the Edge 0.7 reducer with my Christmas money !

From FLO of course 

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/edge-hd-series/celestron-reducer-lens-7x-edgehd-800.html

I have mine at 70 % , its to slow the data rate enough to suit your PC. Imagine the PC is a bath, the USB cable a leaky hose pipe and the camera is the tap ... The USB traffic setting is like a limit on how far the tap opens ... Too far and your water (data) starts leaking out if the leaky hosepipe (USB cable)