Rustang

Although you don't necessarily need a scope with all the bells and whistles for Solar, I was told the Startravels still aren't really the best so maybe keep an eye out for something a little better second hand.

Seems to be 😊 the Solar film seems to work well, I made the holder for it and for the visual 5.0 film as well.

Thanks, 100mm F10 Tal doublet, one that Steve put together! Pics now added above 😊

I wasnt going to post this here but I was excited by my first attempt at Solar imaging! Taken around 2pm today so not the best time in the day but I was waiting for an extention tube to turn up! Thanks Steve (saganite) for the lovely scope. One single frame captured with my Canon 6D DSLR, Baader Continuum filter and Baader 3.8 solar film. My very rough and ready home made solar finder worked a treat and everything went really smoothly and a little easier than I thought it would be.

Look what I did, my first ever image of the sun! While not the best time of the day to photograph the sun, my focus extension tube didnt turn up until this afternoon and I just couldn't wait to give it ago. Thanks everyone for all your help getting set up and thanks to Steve (saganite) for the lovely scope👍

Sorry its how I put it, I didn't mean it's in Cygnus just rising with Cygnus as Cygnus is what I call the top part of the Millyway. I've changed it so there's no confusion 😊

Thanks, those images are great. I've got some more thinking to do but nearly there with what I might start out with 👍

The best part of the Milkway (the core) is currently rising with Sagittarius in the early hours of the morning from around 3-4am approx. This will then be rising in the day time soon and then into the night time again during the summer to re capture then. If you are shooting the "winter" milkway that runs through Orion, which is not so bright or detailed then you will need a dark site, no moon and stacked data from an hours worth or more of subs which will be as long as you setup can take with out washing out. The last Milkyway shot I did was with 90 sec subs over about an hour and with iso 1600 f2.8.

Thanks Vlaiv, much appreciated there's enough there for me to get my head around but yes I think I'm getting it, thanks for your patients with me

Ok cool, I think I'm getting there, so i'm understanding now what we call the "zoom" part, with the help of astronomy tools I can see with a certain scope and camera what field of view "zoomed in" level I would like to image at, so as said fitting the whole sun in nicely. So then as to really break down and to understand the resolution side of things, if I can take the maths away for a second - matching a camera to a scope what are the simple factors after we now know the filed of view we like with said camera and focal length what are the main driving resolution factors- firstly the aperture of the scope helps yes? so with the same camera, same focal length a 100mm aperture would be better than a 72mm aperture for resolution?

I have the ND5 on the way so will start with that, the 3.8 is out of stock with FLO but will look else where and get some on order. So just to really break down the whole "resolution" into really simple terms, better resolution is a camera sensor pixel size and scope that brings you in close therefore having better resolution?, like a picture of say a landscape, when you zoom in to the tree in the distance on a hill, the more you zoom the lower the resolution? obviously camera/equipment quality makes some small difference I guess.

I'm doing my best to understand Vlaiv, I promise, still a bit to mathematical for me though, again not your fault! So what ever the set up ends up being, it will be just for Solar imaging and possibly It would be, I guess good to consider it for imaging the moon which is also something of interest for me. I'm thinking the right camera would suit both and then the right scope but if I was to buy a simply achromatic scope for solar, what about chromatic aberration with moon imaging? I guess I could just concentrate on the solar stuff for now. I should have made it more clear that its the Baader solar 'film' that I'm looking to use, not a filter! Baader AstroSolar Safety Film ND 5.0 | First Light Optics My expectations would be for a nice resolution image, clear enough to see the little details like the sun spots in reasonably good quality, would the first white light image above posted by Elp be a realistic hope for starting out?

lovely images and I would be more than happy with some like those to start with and most certainly (because of cost) just white light for now. Was the second image Ha or white light as it states a HAlpha - Coronad PST was used?

Cheers Vlaiv, so yes I do have a guide came, a ZWO 120MC, not the best. I was looking to use my Canon 6D full frame camera to start with though at 6.55um. As always your advice and info is much apricated but some goes a little past my understanding sometimes, I can be a little dumb, dumb at understanding it, not your fault So I would be wasting my time with a small refactor then. I dont fully grasp the focal length, pixel size and aperture combo for the best resolution, you might have to break it down a little for me. I just mostly get that anything from approx 1000-2500mm fl will fit the whole sun in frame, obviously 2500mm much better and only very vaguley the camera pixel resolution compatibility side of things. Because of this, When you say a 4inch refractor, what fl would I need to look at?! I'm guessing then that if i did get a scope and use my Canon, I would then have to change scopes again if using a camera such as my guide camera later down the line?

While I'm still not in a position to use my main imaging rig for DSO's and that will probably be the case for a while yet, I've started looking more into Solar imaging as something else to do for now. I've spent a couple of days reading up on the web to try and find the best (affordable) way to create a simple set up for now at the focal length I feel is acceptable of approx 1000mm to fit the whole sun in frame. I've come to the conclusion that even though its still at some cost, the cheapest and probably best way to do this is to go for a small ED refractor, something like the SW 72ED scope and at 430mm FL use a x2.5 barlow lens (I'm looking at using the Celestron Luminos 2inch x2.5 barlow) which with my Canon 6D would give me an fl of 1075mm if I'm correct? I've got a couple of mounts I could use, HEQ5 Pro, Star adventurer and a couple of static mounts. I will be starting out with Badder solar film for now while I find my feet with it all. This is to get me started but I would like this set up to also be a little future proof so that later down the line I can add a CDD or CMOS dedicated camera and possibly something like a Lunt Herschel wedge to do Ha solar imaging? I know those wedges are dedicated to refractors hence my thinking of a refractor to start with would be best. Anything I'm missing for safety, extra equipment I've missed or something that would be a better fit etc, please let me know

Its really going to depend on what you would like to achieve and what your expectations are. I live in Bortle 6 skies and I've been playing with the Star Adventurer for a short while now with a few different cameras and lens under these skies and at some much darker sites. My thoughts and experiences are that under light polluted skies, a filter such as the L-enhance which I used, definitely helped filter out some light pollution and bring out the Ha much better and allow for longer exposures, the downside is that you lose some natural colours in the stars etc. Without any filters, even with a modified camera, its been a struggle and most of the time your washing out after 30 sec exposures, I've never achieved anything that great. -Example 1 below with a modified Canon 600D and the L enhance filter in ok Bortle 4 skies with light pollution still visible. Ive played around with my Fuji XT-2 which is not modified and I got an ok image of Andromeda from the Bortle 6 skies. Now onto dark skies (good Bortle 4), these are SOOOOOO much better and worth the drive to as the difference is crazy, from 30 sec exposures nearly washing out at home and not bringing out much detail to 90 sec exposures with lots of details coming through and you can actually shoot at f2.8 with out any issues of washing out!. -Example 2 below taken using an Astro Modified Canon 6D no filters in good bortle 4 skies approximately 1hr's worth of data. Even with an un modified Camera such as my Fuji XT2, on the East coast in Norfolk where there's lovely dark skies you can bring out the Nebulosity with no camera modification or filters. -Example 3 below a non Modified Fuji Xt2 in lovely dark skies no filter again about an 1hr's worth of data. You could spend a few hours in light polluted skies at home gathering lots of 30 sec exposures to try to get a good image but personally I would keep the Camera, lens and Star Adventurer set up for darker skies and spend your 3 to 4 hrs getting somewhere dark to gather data. You will 100% need good processing skills though unless you can get useable calibrations frame's, I couldn't so its been a struggle!!

I saw the alerts for this last night and the pictures posted throughout the night on the Aurora Watch UK FB page, very jealous!

Thanks

Hope so

Beautiful 👏

I see, maybe one day Il play around with it all 👍

Nice to see Andromeda sneaking in on the right!. Panning on a tracking mount sounds tricky, or were your short 8 sec subs on a fixed mount!? I guess you have to take all of the separate sections fairly quickly due to the sky rotation which probably lessons the details you can capture?.

A nice local one for me this time

Please remove this reply!

The Skies are dark and beautiful but yes some sky glow still about but not to bad. You can see the glow from the South above the rocks in the image but this was tammed when blending in the tracked sky. You can see Andromeda and the milkway just in this single 20 sec exposure facing North