BGazing

@wookie1965 you can certainly fit Daystar Chromosphere to the back of your Tal, but I think you would be better served by buying a small dedicated solar scope. I had a Daystar and used it with my 70 and 100mm refractors. The trick is, my 100mm refractor is f/7.4 and the Quark has an internal 4.2x telecentric barlow. Meaning that your Tal will be operating at f/42 and you would be limited to 40mm Plossl - which means uncomfortable views and high magnifications (which you do not always want in h-alpha). I had another refractor to play with. Eventually I decided I like h-alpha so much that I bought a Lunt 80, now double stacked. I do not regret buying Quark, but I think getting a small dedicated h-alpha telescope is a better purchase and a better bang for the buck.

Finally some decent stuff and decent tuning. Seeing was mediocre, but still. One way to also detect proper double stack tuning is that the exposure is a tad higher than in not-so-perfect tuning attempts. Full disc at f/10, filaprom at f/14. Too bad I did not have the 462MM for the filaprom, it is at the customs. Double the FPS for the same ROI and double the h-alpha sensitivity, would have made more quality frames. edit: is there any way to make astrobin images work here? Tried every option there is...

Dobro došao

This is my first actual effort on Venus in 'exotic' wavelengths. Borrowed a C11. UV was shot with a combo of Lumicon #47 and IR-Cut (so not that much UV to start with) and IR with Astronomik 742. Did not have the chance to check collimation beforehand and I suspect it was a bit off.

Using AZ 100 as a single-target sync has been a breeze for solar and planetary. However...tried it under the stars with a C11 and several problems emerged. First, several alignments in Rowan app and the slewing to another star was not dead center, to say the least. Often outside of FOV even in 40mm Aero. Switching to SS often resulted in freezing of the app at some point...and even stoppage of tracking. I would then go back to the app and had to restart the motors for it to work again well. Very weird behaviour. Both programs were on my S22 phone. Thought it would be easy...surely C11 is not too much. Used on Planet for this purpose, so I guess no flexion either, two counterbalancing weights. Just overall weird. Any help is much appreciated...

Updated the original post, added limb proms from April 20/21.

What a treat that must have been...

So good to finally see the Sun after month and a half of dire weather. I like the result, too...

Excellent, you may try killing that gradient in processing...it would look even nicer.

Development started this morning, I took a shot before work and will process it tonight.

Shot this a while ago and had too much work to process it the way I wanted. 22 March shots were done at f/14, the following day at f/11.

Well, I have returned the adapter and switched top plate to EQ6, in the end it proved to be the more elegant solution (at a price). Everything works, and I got used to Rowan app just fine. I have learned that I have to tighten the altitude clutch properly - otherwise the scope will drift downwards due to imbalance. But the beauty of the encoders is that you may move it and it will just know where to come back. superbly silent, non-vibrating, resilient to wind (as in - the mount does its part, but the scope might vibrate, of course). Balancing will take some time to learn, I assume just to as well as possible and then tighten sufficiently that it locks but you can still move it around manually without stiffness if possible. Dual saddles are super secure but I am still learning how to load stuff into. Some of my dovetails (e.g. on Lunt and Tak) are short so can fit in one clamp only...but that is still just fine, especially if balance requires so.

This is really nice, actually, a very decent effort. Just got a hold of TS #47 and here are its scans (another plot is new L2 by Astronomik). I bet it is the same #47 that FLO sells under a different brand, worth trying - has all the best UV real estate plus some violet.

Trying not to clog the forum by opening a new topic for separate days, so another update. Managed to grab this before work and before the cold front moves in, we'll have some seriously bad weather ahead. Full disc was shot at f/8.5, prom at f/14...

Update: images made today

No, I meant which bandpass in nm.

Very nice, which IR pass did you use?

Here it is. Disc was shot at, I think, F10, little proms at F14.

Very good to learn this. How did you take them off in the first place? The problem with snugness is that, with the new adapter being level with the top plate (or even a mm higher, actually), getting snug with it and snug with a normal EQ5 mount might be unfeasible).

Hm, I think it is a different one....M10 widening on top of a bolt that is probably M8...so It could be taken out, I guess. But the trick is that, one should be able to snugly secure other mounts, too. Once the bolt too long, goodbye snug.

Checked everything again. If this is indeed a feature and not a bug, the new adapter is unusable for owners of Berlebach (H)EQ-5 tripods. Bolt has to be replaced or somehow prolonged. Not sure how it is to be take off without a saw job.

edit: according to Derek, it is a new version of the adapter...and my bolt has to be lengthened or I have a thick washer...standard Uni 18 tripod, though.

Well, postage to Serbia is fairly cheap...and I have some UK friends who travel. But, aside from that...what is it that I have gotten? I am perplexed. Box states the proper serial number... Wrote to Derek, if there's something wrong, I'm sure Rowan and @FLO will correct it. I feel like Daffy Duck in this episode...just can't get that mount up and running.

The rest of my delivery has arrived...completely confused with that EQ5 adapter. here are the pics of its top and bottom. Bottom is flat, M10 gets into it only a centimeter - different from the photo on the leaflet, which has that EQ5 bottom

Well, I started imaging planets only this summer, so take my answers with a grain of salt...but here is what I think I understood by reading around. (By the way, I recommend Planetary astronomy edited by Pellier, if you are into planetary observation and imaging). DF in continuum would require ADC, and perhaps would present more problems because of the correction in blue. I find my colors are much better aligned with C8, although it is an inferior instrument when it comes to craftsmanship. Imaging in twilight is doable, I think I got this image before astro dark (could be nautical twilight, hard to tell in urban environment). Expositions in visible light are, when it comes to Venus, so short that I reckon there would be no benefit from going down in aperture. The real deal is imaging either in infrared (which would be doable in twilight) and would reveal lower Venusian clouds, or in UV (for which you need to have a reasonably dark sky as the UV is dispersed during daylight). Refractors and their lenses absorb UV, I believe fluorite absorbs less or minimally so, but there's that other element. Visually, you could try #38 and #47 on Venus and clouds. I will be trying #47, but then again C8 has twice the aperture of DF and #47 cuts to 3-5 percent of light. It also grabs some UV and people had nice results with it.