Luke

Very nice, what a lovely prom it was and it lives on in the lovely captures of it. The background is nice and smooth too.

I didn't do white light today, but with my 100mm scope and h-alpha filter, I couldn't make out any sunspots.

What use is the best imaging rig in the world when one has a broken heart? My wife feels most sentimental about our Equinox 120mm scope. I was up for selling it at one point, but am glad now that my wife vetoed it. Though it's tempting to get a 150mm as well, I think 120mm will probably be the largest frac we have unless we get an obsy one day! For me, I am most fond of our smallest scope: the little Tele Vue-60. It's been my faithful grab-and-go scope, especially for solar, and it looks a bit quirky. It also restored my faith in helical focusers! To some, this may be little more than a guide scope. To me, this is a mini marvel!

The colour looks good to me on my 4K monitor Charl, though my wife probably wouldn't vouch for my good taste in things! Thanks for your kinds works about my Flicker gallery, it's going slower than I hoped adding new stuff, though I am over a "phantom cold" now so hope to pick things up again (caused by me taking too much nasal spray!). Great to see you on flickr, I am following now. I see you have a bunch of lovely moon shots too and planets! I tried planets but found them really tough!

It was nice of the sun to put on a display for the improved weather! I really like the framing, with the detail on the disc lower left and the amazing prom!

Congrats on the new gear, and welcome to the addictive world of Ha!

If it was me, my first port of call would be Lunt. I'd get the largest aperture I could afford / was comfortable with, single stack, with a view to double stack it down the line. If that was a 40mm PST, I've had some lovely views through those. H-alpha is kind of crazy money and budget has to play a part! Although I have not owned a Lunt, I've been impressed by the views I have had through several of them over the years, the price is just about within my pain threshold (!), and I've heard good things about Lunt generally. I've owned two SolarMax 60's, which I was happy with given their cheaper price than the Lunts. And I am looking to replace my Daystar Quark filters, which I have used at 60mm, 85mm, 100mm, and 120mm. For imaging I liked using the 120mm the most - more fine detail if conditions are good. For observing, 100mm (lighter scope, but still tons of detail). For grab and go, my little Tele Vue 60 has been a very faithful companion! The 85mm was kind of a halfway of the benefits of the 60mm and 100mm scopes. Although larger aperture is lovely for close-up detail (as it is with the moon), a small scope also has its attractions, especially when you may get lots of opportunities to observe the sun. It's great to be able to take the scope anywhere with you with a compact mount. Or to nip out really quick. Good luck with making the right choice for you!

It'd be great to make it to another SGL Star Party! It would be great to catch up with some folks we met before and to meet new people.

Nice setup! The mount grabbed my eye, I don't think I've seen one of those before (SkyWatcher Solar Quest). I like that you can run it off batteries.

Wow, lovely image of a lovely prom! It might just be that I have had a Jaffa cake too many, but I see an owl flying out from it.

Yikes, that's awful. I don't want to be tempted to sell my sweet little Edge 8! I wouldn't have minded the 9.25 at the time, but the price difference was so much. As it turns out, I love the compact, light weight of the 8. One cool thing about astro gear though is that most of it seems to last for ages. I have stuff about a decade old that still looks pretty much new! I hope the folks at FLO are doing fine and that we all get back to more normal times soon.

Congrats on the new kit! Looks very promising to me.

Very cool! That looks like a nice old frac and a nice mount too.

Very nice! Well done getting the Ca-K in against the odds!

Sweet! The motion is so beautiful!

I made a silly mistake once with a solar setup. No problem caused, fortunately. +1 for a written checklist. Thanks for the safety reminder. One little mistake could be so costly and it's easy to think "that'll never happen."

Managed to bag a view. It's a big 'un! Nice little needle on display too. My wife Sarah saw the needle first and was thinking, "Is that what you rushed me out for?" She had no complaints when she saw the main prom! 🤠 It's been a lovely day here, feels very much like summer. I also saw a massive bee (not through the telescope, ahem).

Nice one, Charl! I especially love the colour one. I was very lucky to see it at the eyepiece. I was through most of the day pottering around with a laptop and then suddently thought, I'll have a check on Gong. Ooooooh! I think I broke my setup record! 🤠

Beautiful! Well done capturing it!

Good to hear from you, Ron. Best of luck with your op and for a better year ahead and whacking some golf balls in the near future. I had a less serious knee problem a few years ago, and the pain was so intense.

I love processing, so a lot of the fun for me is in processing the image. Also, processing lets me have a good look at the subject and makes me feel closer to it, all from the comfort of my chair and the warmth indoors. Sure, you can buy some books with beautiful images, but I like playing around with the data. I make the images for me but do submit a few to galleries on Flickr.

I feel the need to test a purple light torch!

Welcome, Damian! I wondered where the clear gaps had gone! 😄

Easy for me, option 2! I would also pick 2 for 25k. That would get me to my ideal visual lineup. Relatively light 12 or 14 inch dob, new solar h-alpha scope or high quality filter, Skywatcher ED150, and maybe a few Tele Vue Delites for my grab and go scope. But I suppose this year should teach me to appreciate what I have more, and my setup works pretty great for my needs already.

I have no idea how to make an award-winning photo, the only thing I have ever won was here on SGL, guessing the answer to a Christmas cracker joke. My vote is, process to your goals or taste. Process it for you. Enjoy the processing. It is lovely to see multiple interpretations, these images can be processed in so many different ways, and putting your interpretation or taste into the image makes it special. The universe without life would be a bit empty, it is nice to see life indirectly in the image!