At dusk

Some images taken in the last few days. Lunt 80, asi1600 and several barlows.

No. Unfortunately my neighbour's house hid the moon. It could have been a very interesting view.

Hi

A very nice visual conjunction, but very difficult due to the fact that they were too close to the horizon. Anyway, a picture just to remember the event.

Regards

Hi

I haven´t posted anything for a long time. After many rainy and cloudy days, the sun surprised me with a lot of activity. This is why I want to share some pictures in h alpha and white light:

Regards

I received my eyepiece almost two weeks ago, but due to the awful weather it's been impossible  to try this new zoom properly so far.

At least today I can post my first impressions. Although it was not the best night, there were wide patches of dark sky among the clouds. It was very cold and  I would rate the seeing as average. To top it off, high clouds caused a clear degradation of the views.

Anyway I used my grab'n'go set up: lunt 80 (lunt LS80 h Alpha without the solar module) on az-gti. To pump up magnification I always use a Takahashi 1,6 extender, because it works really well in all my refractors.

You must take everything with a pinch of salt, you can't make a review with only half an hour at the eyepiece, but it has really surprised me .The views through the zoom are absolutely amazing. Jupiter showed many details even with the less than ideals weather conditions. I compared the views with my toe 4 mm and the zoom in the same position. Definitely a bit more scatter although not really distracting, but the same level of detail. I suppose that with better seeing and less clouds it would be easier to find differences, but time will tell.

I think that it may offer 80-90% of the performance of 6 excellent toes for half the price of one.  I owned a TV 3-6 for several years, but I sold it because I prefer fixed eyepieces to zooms for planets and the TV is too expensive to keep both. However I'm sure I will keep this one.

Hi

I really love this little telescoper. These are tests with my asi1600 and Ha y OIII filters from home in a red zone. I probably need to increase the integration time specially in the OIII line. 

Regards

I used an Asi1600 cool. Eventually I could solve the problem with the flats and I reprocessed the data. I attach the new image. I’m really enjoying it. You can use it as an imaging telescope, finderscope or for guiding.

HI.

Beatufil day today con with bright blue sky. I set my 130 refractor to image a quite interesting sun just to discover that the seeing was awful. All the captures have ended in the recycle bin

Anyway, I attach some h alpha images obtained with my Zs 73 and quark. I solved the problem of the newton rings just loosening the clump and tilting the camera on the focuser.

Thansks for looking

I appreciate the answers.

I intend to use the quark awith my lzos 130 f9 too. But that won’t be in the near future. ERFs can be almost as expensive as a full solar telescope.

I was about to order a tilter from zwo. But I’ve ordered a QHY462c and I suppose I can’t use the zwo tilter with the QHY

Does anyone now about a tilt device that I can use with the QHY camera?

Regards

Hi

Recently I had to sell my lunt 80 to finance other more earthly needs. I've replaced it with a quark. This is its first light. Two conclusions: I'm gonna miss the lunt and I need a tilter to avoid newton rings. Anyway here are my first pictures with this set up. I used a zenisthar 73 (and herschell for white light)

Hi

This little scope is amazing. The flaws in the image are due to my clumsiness. It's my firt image combining h alpha and O III. And, besides, I commited a mistake with the OIII flats.  Anyway, I'm really happy with the test. I`ll ty to learn from my mistakes next time

Hi

I used my Eq6-r only roughly polar aligned. The planets were very low and I had to place the telescope in a place in the garden where I couldn’t see Polaris. No need for autoguiding either. I captured several 60 seconds videos with different gains and exposure times and after selecting the best I processed it in auto stakker, registax and photoshop. Give it a try. It’s not difficult to obtain a beautiful memory.

Regards, Rafa

After over a month of rain, clouds and wind,  I've been lucky because I've been able to enjoy the most beatiful conjunction since I took up this hobby almost 40 years ago. Visually it has been and amazing show. Both plantets dancing really close and surrounded by a beautiful retinue of  moons. I don´t think anyone has been able to capture all this beauty in a single picture. This is what I`ve got. Zenisthar 73 + powermate 2.5x + asi120mm

Regards

Visual observation of the conjunction was truly amazing. The difference in colours between Jupiter and Saturn is a joy. Quite difficult to capture in pictures

My contribution . Zenisthar 73, powermate 2.5, asi 120

Regards

Out of sheer boredoom...

Regards

Hi

This morning I've been treated with a wonderful  occultation from my location. I leave some images of the phemomena. The first one is a composition of 5 images taken with an asi1600. The close-ups were imaged with an Asi224C

Regards

I forgot the pictures. Officcina stellare 80 mm + asi1600mm

HI

Astronomy has been my main hobby for the last forty years. I watch and image the sun regularly but I have to admit that I'd never bothered to look at planets o the moon in broad daylight. I didn't expect much of the occultation with the big bright summer sun so close in the sky. But it was amazing. The planet approaching slowly and then disappearing until only a small point of light was visible against the darkest disk of the moon.

I attach a couple of pictures as a testimony, although unfortunately they cannot reflect the beauty of the occultation

Regards

I appreciate the comments. I’m not sure but it’s probably a swift. There are many of them in this area during spring

regards, Rafa

I think they do. It seems to be enjoying it

Regards

HI

Just a heads-up. Really beautiful prom today. It's  to bad that the easterly wind is blowing over 60 km/h. This is a image taken in really bad conditions. It is really worth it in visual

Regards

II've only used 10x30" out of the 40 exposures I shot

Bad day to commit silly mistakes

Regards

Hi

A low quality image but a beautiful memory. I am a bit clumsy and I committed a huge mistake yesterday when setting the camera. I lost 80% of the frames and all the darks

This is all that I've managed to rescue :

Thanks for looking

I appreciate your comments. The truth is that I set up the telescope with the intention of waking up early and shoot the planets. But I realized that the battery in my JMI focuser was flat and I decided to test the telescope with the moon

I live in Spain near “Costa del Sol” but it is amazing how dreadful the weather has been for the las two months. I’m looking forward to a chance to take a look at the planets.

regards