Rusted

Blowing a southerly gale here despite a 51F heatwave and bright sunshine! I have only one shutter open and the laptop strapped down in case it blows away! Slightly better seeing than last time.

Thank you very much, Adam, for your very thorough response. You have raised some fascinating issues: Firstly, I am primarily a solar [and lunar] imager using a 6" or 7" refractor. So there's never [usually] any lack of light. Until now, I have tried to keep [SharpCap] Gain as low as possible. Often set to Zero even with maximum 2ms exposures using the '174. Then I changed a vital solar filter component. Which required much more light than before. So I opted for much higher Gain settings. Just to keep exposures as short as possible. I imagined [in my ignorance] that the two settings were a simple see-saw. One goes up as the other goes down. Ignorance truly is bliss! My thinking was that thermal agitation of the image would be minimized by using the shortest possible exposures. Probably an overly-simplistic response through a complete lack of [your] expert knowledge. Gain bad. Exposure acceptable. Now you have raised the spectre of loss of dynamic range I shall have to seriously rethink my video capture settings. It seems I must limit Gain as much as possible at the expense of rather longer Exposures. Certainly worth conducting some trials. Meanwhile, my "asymmetric lighting" problem will probably respond to Light Frames/Flats rather than Dark? Thanks again.

Hi, A very simple question: The answer may not be so simple. Why does altering Gain or Exposure, in SharpCap, make changes of brightness travel right across the computer screen? Why doesn't the whole screen become lighter, or darker, evenly all over? With the screen apparently edge lit, from the right side, it often requires a much smaller frame size [Capture Area] to exclude the offset brightness. Is this normal?

Thank you for your encouragement DP. It is always surprising how rapidly features change on the sun. While my images may look superficially detailed they don't give the impression of looking down from a spacecraft. Many skilled imagers manage this trick repeatedly. While I continue to struggle up the steep learning curve of image processing. My having a 150mm or 6" f/10 refractor is very demanding of seeing conditions. A larger instrument inevitably has higher magnifications [image scale] at the camera due to its greater focal length. Daytime seeing is usually much poorer than night time. Simply because the "big heater in the sky" isn't making the atmosphere tremble with convection currents. In good seeing conditions I can see incredible detail "live" on my large imaging monitor. It doesn't need "lucky imaging" to bring out all this detail. At the live video capture stage and first alignment in Autostakkert the detail is already there. The images in this thread needed the processing to see anything interesting at at all.

Thanks Dave. The seeing was poor all day here. Cloud variable. Seven hours, largely wasted, trying to capture mush.

Superb images as always!

Further images: The triple spot is splitting and throwing off filaments.

Gales, clouds and soft seeing: Large, disturbed area with triple spot near western border.

Excellent! Thanks again Ken.

Thanks Ken. That raises some more questions: How does one lay that grid over the sun's image? By adding a layer during image processing? Where does the grid come from? A solar website? Thanks again.

Excellent images Ken. Your vast experience shows in their sheer quality. Do you deliberately correct the solar disk orientation for [more populous] Northern Hemisphere viewers?

Some nice images.

Here you go: Excellent video SD!

Hi Pete, Let us hope it is a sign of things to come.

Sheer genius to add a chicken coop to an ROR observatory run-off rails. Nice bit of lateral thinking on several levels.

2x WO Barlow and squeezed a bit harder in ImPPG.

But is it art?

Very nice. Marty is my imaging hero but he is using "alien technology" compared with my humble standards.

Nice images! Your proms are far better than anything I can tease out of the present seeing conditions.

Thanks Dave. They look a bit washed out on SGL compared to my monitor. Full sun here with light winds and 44F but the seeing isn't that great.

Clear skies this morning after a 24F overnight frost. White light and H-alpha of the busy area. 800x600, 30% of 3K frames.

Looks good Doc. I could let you have a lump of 7" Ø alloy bar. But the international postage would bankrupt one or both of us. BTW: Your shafts may be chrome plated steel. No magnet sticks to any of my stainless steel shafts. I'd like to use my own clinometer like that but it just won't stick.

Worth a look: Small depression with filament [?] right on the NE limb: Best I can manage so far between the clouds: 640x480 cropped and enlarged. Needs a Barlow. I need more sun! EDIT: Added 2x WO [cropped] Barlow images. Added a close up of the AR by cropping:

Correct: You have a choice: Maier ITF from the US $75 US dollars, plus customs + taxes + custom clearance + VAT on top of everything. Or Beloptik from Europe at a higher, initial, retail price : €149 Euros + P&P but NO additional taxes. Having read around the subject the Beloptik is considered optically superior by some users. I bought a Maier in 2018 and have no complaints. Both have offered excellent service in the past. Pre- Cov-19. ITF replacement filter for Coronado blocking filters ITF H-Alpha 656 nm filter Do not touch the delicate surfaces of the replacement filter you buy. Ensure correct orientation in the telescope. EDIT: The Beloptik price has risen.

I don't have a lens ring, pin tool. So I used a small pair of screw adjusting, workshop dividers bridged between the holes. The Maier replacement ITF is well worth having judging by my secondhand PST's ITF. Though you must expect a bit of import duty and then VAT on top of literally everything. US retail price + postal charges + import duty + customs clearance charges x VAT at 20%[?] It is just possible "they" will rush through a trade agreement to get the economic world turning again, post 19. Though I wouldn't bet on it. Get your order in while you still can and be grateful when it arrives. Remember to maintain your social distancing from the postman.