tooth_dr

Go with the 5m cable. I use a star tech 4 channel hub, metal case, reliable item. An astro hub would be a good investment. I have a V3 Hitec Astro MHP and it controls power and usb, plus focuser and dew heaters.

Thats what I did in mine, as a static image, but I think your black surface looks great.

Every so often I have a lovely meteor on my all sky camera and wonder if others have also picked it up also. I was thinking of starting this thread, as an opportunity for owners of ASCs, to share images and timelapses that have captured something such as a meteor or other interesting phenomena. If you include the date and time of the capture it would alert others to it and then can check their own data to see if they captured it, and in turn post their images of it. My ASC runs every night and manages the files itself via AllSkyEye software (thanks!), and although I check it, I am sure I miss things. This would be like a network to highlight potentially missed interesting data to others. I'll start it off with this one: 16/04/202 00:28 Thanks in advance Adam.

Very nice. Bloody time consuming to animate thats for sure, you've done a good job of it so far. If you are into scripts, you can write one to alter the gain/exposure so that it records the proms then immediately the surface, then pauses for an interval, and repeat. Thats on my todo list.

Brilliant set of images there Bob, it has been a brilliant week for you and me both with the skies of late.

I dont think the background looks too dark, and there is lots of nice colour and contrast in the two spirals. Great job.

@symmetal Alan thanks for the cleaning tip in the thread. I used some bathroom limescale spray, let it soak for a bit, and washed in soap and cleaned with Baader wonderfluid. Looks as good as new.

One year later look at my filter 😮 I just replaced it a couple of days ago, before I did the solar prominence time lapse. The footage from the day before lacks contrast in comparison.

I think he’s answering my question about surface texture. I’m using a SS and your using a quark.

This is my camera. It’s old but seems to still be up to the job. In fact my wife bought it from my for my 30th, and its my 40th this year 😮 This is my camera: and I made an enclosure for mine: More info: https://astromart.com/classifieds/astromart-classifieds/ccd-cameras-astro/show/lumenera-lu070m-planetaryguide-camera-reduced

No problem ask away. I combined in PS manually adjusting layer position. It’s time consuming but IMPPG didn’t get them quite right. I did 70 layers last night. There is 504 frames in the afternoon and about 400 in the morning. I’m not sure if PS will cope with that many frames. I might split it into smaller groups and use PIPP to combine. Unfortunately I think tracking at source is the best option but I don’t have a solar tracker. I used Firecapture auto run with the 120MM, but switched to Lumenera LU070M when the NRs spoiled the image too much. The Lumenera camera doesn’t work with FC but luckily worked with Sharpcap Pro. I did a capture series in it too.

What would that indicate? I’m having a similar issue when scope looks easy but is not present when scope points west post meridian flip. Is it focuser sag?

Superb detail. I wish I could get my surface to look like that. Great job.

No problem. I’m open to advice so please feel free to recommend anything. I just made up those figures this morning.

Two nice full disks there 👍🏻 Can’t wait to see your time lapse 🌞

Hi! Thank you. I set it to take 400 frames. That was taking 10-13s and then I left a 20s interval. This went on from morning but I had to keep checking it and nudge the position every 10-15 minutes.

I hadnt realised how hard it would be to get this all organised. I'm learning as I go, this is 1 hour of images processed. I will work on improving alignment, and hopefully have a better final video when the 8 hours are processed. I should say thanks to @SiriusDoggy for his IMPPG tips, and his good video he posted. I was limited to camera choice, the NRs on the 120MM were impossible to deal with, so I dug out an old Lumenera LU070M board camera, which is 640x480 7.4um pixels and mono, and gives decent FPS 30-60 depending on what else the PC is doing! Despite the software, I had to align by hand in PS as all the frames were slightly out, and as a result I have some drifting. Anyway after all that, still PDC, comments and tips welcome. TIA Adam. test-solar-COLOUR-FAST.mp4

Very nice quality images, looks good in both FOVs.

It's been a three day marathon - not complaining mind! Came out this morning after a night of imaging M94, switched over to the solar scope, and it was there.

Well I spent the entire day imaging that prom from 9:30am til now. Hope I get can it together into a time lapse video 😂🙈

There is a pretty decent looking prom on the sun now

You should definitely have a read and try to understand what your calibration frames are doing. This will help you when it comes to taking them! The flats won’t be any use but the dark flats (taken with cap on) won’t be affected by focus position. However the exposure time may be wrong when you retake your flats. But unless your flats are long then you might not even need them? Some of my flats at 15s long so I use dark flats. But you definitely on the right track here. This kit is what I had until recently and it’s very capable kit. Here is my M63 with a DSLR, ED80, reducer and EQ6. You have a cooled camera so lots of potential 👍🏼

Any engineering place could drill this out and thread it for you. Should cost very little. It doesn’t need to be an ‘astronomy shop’!

Anyone have this link please or some other suggestions for guiding on the sun?

Just to update this thread - I havent bought one yet. I'm using a Baader power supply 240v - 12v 5A to run both QHY9s. I've the 12v cable run though the wall of the warm room to the QHY9 power packs. I've decided to save my money for the time being, but once I move to my dome I'll be in the market for a power supply to run all. Cheers