Luke

I suppose with better conditions you've have pulled out even more detail Charl but it looks lovely to me.

I must confess that I don't miss battling the clouds! I hope FLO get the Zarkov cloud gun back in stock soon.

That's a result with the scope, Mark! It looks nice in the piccies online. Looks like it has a dual-speed focuser? Is it a good focuser? It sounds nice and compact for travel at F5.5. I normally take my 60mm F6.

I enjoyed a nice view of the sun I think it was on Wednesday. The spot was a fair size and there were four nice proms around with one big one.

Now that I don't image these days I am tending to view white light at home with my Equinox 120 and Baader Herschel Wedge. I used to be lazy and use a 100mm and Lunt 1.25 wedge, as the Baader was set up with a photographic-only ND filter and I couldn't be bothered to keep swapping over to the visual ND filter.

I'd go for the largest aperture budget allows (assuming equal quality of the filter). I would sort of compare it to viewing the moon. A larger telescope is going to allow you to see more detail at higher mag. More detail in proms and more detail in the swirls surrounding spots. The extra aperture is giving you more resolution, just like with the moon.

I think you could be right, Rob! There's something very special about observing the night sky that is quite fulfilling and wholesome!

For me it would be the largest dob that's minimal hassle, e.g. light and easy for me to move around, solid tube with practically zero setup. That's currently my GSO 10 inch dob. I really like the simple but effective base on it. Optically, my unit's okay but not the best, I'd love to move to an almost as light 12 or possibly 14 solid tube with better optics. Its weakness for me is it's not the best option for solar.

For solar I'd take my trusty ED100, a Herschel wedge and a solar H-alpha filter. I'd pick it over my ED120 as it's got enough resolution for my taste on solar and I like its light weight, even though it's quite a long scope (F9).

Sweet shots, good to see you back in action, David!

Hopefully the white light is the calm before the storm!

Some lovely images, as ever. Very well done to all the winners, especially SGLers!

Welcome to SGL, Phil!

Sweet looking scope!

When I looked at your last image, I initially read the brand name on the diagonal as "AliExpress"! 

Welcome to the club! Lucky you getting to play with a Solarscope!

Good luck with the new gear! A Solar Spectrum might be what I'd pick if I tried imaging again, having seen Michael's excellent results. Very interested to see how you get on with it.

Same here (well apart from holding it in my hands!), the last image has a really nice feeling of depth.

Thanks for the views, I can skip the vitamin D tablet today.

Wow, that's impressive from the phone! I must admit, I don't like my skies too dark, in case I knock over the single malt.

If the EQ8 is for a 60mm scope, you're definitely bored! Get well soon, we need some more solar images!

Thanks for the info and thoughts! That's interesting you got those fast rates on an old lappy! My lappy's newish but with old components and only cost £200. But I wondered what it might be able to do should I get tempted back into imaging, as it does have USB3 and I added an SSD. Have fun with the SS60-DS!

Very nice! Well done beating the high haze. Thin cloud was hampering my views at the eyepiece. I love the colours.

5000's a nice big lot of exposures. What kind of frame rate are you getting out of the ASI290?

The Daystar SS60-DS seems quite a good price. Are you very happy with it? Are there any minuses to it?

I don't think I'd buy one myself as I had a few issues with Daystar, but it looks an interesting unit and some folks are getting amazing results from Daystar equipment, especially for the price.

Wohoo! Glad your goodies have turned up!

I've lost quite a few things down the years that I put in a safe place. Right now, I'd like to find all those limited edition 50p's my Auntie gave me down the years, that are all worth a small fortune now! Might be able to buy some astro gear if I can find 'em all! All I've found so far is 2p and a nice-looking button.

The biggest tragedy however, due to my poor memory, was losing a nice bar of marzipan chocolate I'd bought at the supermarket. "Where on earth did I put it?"

Then I remembered. "On top of the car roof while packing the rest of the stuff."

I didn't bother retracing my route to try and find it.

Freely held?! Well done! I can't get anything freely held!

Nice one, Peter! I'm a fan of the close-up especially too!

Nice one, Cliff, that's some lovely detail from the Combo Quark. I don't know much about the deep sky cameras. But that one can do 23FPS at 16 megapixels? Sweet! Not that I am guessing you'd be doing 23 FPS on deep sky! Mind you, it might be interesting what you could pull out! Cooling sounds nice for solar imaging, I think I recall seeing some dedicated planetary cameras that offered cooling. Less noise, I think?

It is lovely with the imaging how you have a permanent memory of your sessions. May you have many clear skies over Summer!

Here's a quick helioviewer animation of what's been going on. Looks like it had a little more movement than I thought.

https://helioviewer.ias.u-psud.fr/cache/movies/2021/09/12/11g2Z/2021_09_12_01_20_17_2021_09_12_13_04_17_AIA_304.mp4

Cor Cliff, that certainly makes the suspects list! That looks amazing, well done! Interesting to see it still attached. I've had a few more views here in slightly improving conditions, though still through pesky thin cloud. It is currently still visible but getting fainter here, still enjoyable and a decent size. Can't see any attachment and it most recently looked a bit "M"-shaped (or "W"-shaped) to me, which I can sorta make out from your image if I squint at your image (getting a "W" at an angle). It doesn't look to me like it has been moving anywhere much.

re: the pesky clouds folks are experiencing, I really wish FLO still had stock of the Zarkov. I regret not buying one while they had it.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/misc/zarkov-cloud-gun.html

Update: Well the cloud thinned a little bit and I could make out a fuzzy big blog some way off the surface. The view was poor and faint though and it was hard to tell whether it was detached or not.

I fared better with a few other smaller but still sweet proms. There was a little double spike two horns sort of prom and the prom you see in the Gong image around 9-o-clock looked very much like that and really nice, some fine detail to it. It looked like nearly a bridge but possibly with a gap in the middle.

Update #2: It's cleared a bit better. The big blob is very faint, perhaps not too much of a spectacular view right now. I am not sure it is moving away from the sun. Actually it's not a blob after all, it's quite finely structured. I wonder if it's raining back down? Or maybe just fading in place. I don't feel it's moved further away.

Thanks Charl, sorry to hear it's clouded there. The view's not quite as mind-blowing right now as I was hoping, though I think is worth a look if you have a chance. It may be fading out.

On Gong it looks like there's a big detached prom moving out of the frame at about 10 to 11-o'clock. Anyone had any joy seeing or imaging it?! No luck there. Forecast is partially sunny but there's a layer of cloud - I can see the disc and just about make out some spots, but no proms!

Good luck!

I've got the Lunt 1.25" wedge too, just been using it a few minutes ago. Lovely bit of kit and great value!

For visual the UV/IR cut should not be needed. The only reason I would consider using one for visual is if the telescope seemed to be getting very hot. My 120mm scope seems fine when using the 2" Baader Herschel wedge and the views are so crisp I find it hard to imagine a UV/IR cut would improve things. No harm trying though I guess.

For imaging, I found the UV/IR cut made a big difference with my Tele Vue 85. Without it, the image was fuzzy. With my Equinox 120mm, however, the UV/IR cut appeared to make no difference. My best guess is that the Schott glass used in the Equinox 120mm cuts IR.

So based on my experience I would say it depends on your scope - and could be camera too - and is worth a try for imaging if you have one hanging around.

Very nice and I especially love the beautiful proms! My favourite prom is the upper one in picture 4.