vineyard

Its a bit late to be posting this but perhaps it'll be still going tomorrow - an absolute MONSTER prom today on the SW limb.

Thanks @p1taylor - yes agreed re the warmth - Sun will get higher in the sky too (right now I get about 1hr window!). I guess night skies will get shorter then too - you can't win' em all (maybe if we were in a more tropical country!)

Hallelujah, finally caught up & can clear multiple Gb of data from hard drive. The large ARs were beautiful through the little TM2 and the images haven't come out that badly, although seeing was not great it felt like (certainly the Ha was also quite patchy)? No GPCs used this time (I forgot in my haste to set up). Anyway, can go & put a cold towel on my head now.

Thanks @catburglar yes that is what I'm leaning towards. So you deforked it? I'm curious if it could be turned into some form of crude spectrohelioscope - will ask on Solarchat!

I think it depends on how the secondary is attached - I've read in some places (CN if I recall) that if the secondary is glued, then the reflected sunlight hitting the secondary could melt the glue. Ah sorry, I just realised I was clumsy - when I was saying "wedge" in the original post, I meant a Herschel WL wedge rather than a tripod wedge. Apologies.

Thanks @Rusted - I like the GPC idea - thank you for the tip, will definitely use that more & more And now that you mention it, yes the 2.6x GPC definitely seems to give brighter images - that probably also contributes to the more "active" nature they invoke.

Hello, I have an old ETX125 (f15) - it's in very good condition. I don't use it anymore, so am wondering whether it might be worth selling it to someone who could make more use of it. But before I do that, was wondering are there any interesting projects that could be done with it to turn it into a dedicated scope. (For example, I did think of putting a wedge on the back, since with the obstruction it's probably the same (or less) free aperture as a 4" frac - but then read that that would be a v-e-r-y bad idea for the secondary mirror!). Any clever ideas? Cheers, Vin

After suggestion by @Rusted in a different day's imaging thread about how he threads GPCs into the nose of his camera, I thought I'd experiment with that. And used 1.25x & 2.6x. The image on the screen is definitely bigger w both (w the 2.6x the whole disk no longer fits on the FOV). Images are below - where I was able to take more or less the same composition w each of the GPCs I've noted that (hence pls forgive some repeat framings). In some of the images I also tried different numbers of APs in AS!3 just to see whether there is a dramatic difference. It's interesting - I think I'm quite surprised by how well the 2.6x GPC came out in ROI tbh, a better sense of dynamism? I did also try some 2x2 binning but unfortunately the FC txt files didn't capture that (so either I made a mistake & didn't bin, or I should have written it down). Whole disk (1.25x GPC): SW limb (1.25x GPC): SW limb (2.6x GPC): NW limb (1.25x GPC): NW limb (2.6x GPC): ROI (1.25x GPC, larger APs): Same ROI (1.25x GPC, smaller APs): Same ROI (2.6x GPC): SE limb (2.6x GPC, larger APs): SE limb (2.6x GPC, smaller APs):

Loving the CaK - esp the monochrome one 👍🏾👍🏾

That whole disk CaK just conveys a sense of activity - its like the wake behind a boat on a slightly choppy sea

Hi @jock1958 yes it can (I did exactly that w my old SP mount w some old Vixen clone motors on both axes). It becomes whisper quiet & is brilliant for high power lunar or planetary (I regularly took my 102M f/10 to 333x & it did not break a sweat - rock solid, lovely views of Martian polar ice cap & of course the moon). I used to keep mine in alt-az mode (& it really is easy to swap between the two) but after putting the motors on, switched it back to EQ b/c it was just so much easier. And the way the cogs work, if you're ever out of power, you can just unlock a little tightener to unmesh and go back to manual slow-mo. Ingenious. I did actually put mine up for sale in a foolish fit of kit-guilt a few months back but luckily there were no takers so it went back into the shed to live another day. Its just a lovely mount. @F15RulesDave that photo of your 102M in its cradle and mounted is giving me a hankering - if I had the space I would permanently mount the 102M on the SP - a perfect combination. Enjoy Bortle 2 with that!

My first Ha composite - when the sun eventually starts to go behind the twigs of a tree.

That looks like you could be in close solar orbit!

So far so good🤞🏾! Took it for a spin last night - about 5 hrs of data, and best regular RMS yet (not sure what the avg was over the night, but was getting c 0.8 quite often w a 1m+ long setup that comes in at the max recommended load fro AP, so quite happy w that given weight & moment). Curious to see what happens w a lighter wide-field setup. That warped belt was really affecting things. Reckon the RA can still be improved a bit (has a bigger variance than the DEC) so maybe s/t to work on later in the year on the hyper-tuning side. Hopefully it stays like this for quite a while - thanks again all, much appreciated & yet another example of SGL community spirit 🙏🏾

Thanks @Sunshine - yes, while I reckon the images could be improved, I think that's the best whole disk I've taken so far - a combination of the seeing & the kit I guess. The Ha scope is a Solarscope SF50 single stack etalon threaded onto an old TV76. The camera is an old discontinued ASI178MM-cool (using it uncooled), with an Astronomik L1 filter (otherwise the 178MMc sensor goes bananas). Cheers

I think the seeing was v good that day? (Incl a couple of non-colourised images b/c I can't decide whether I prefer the mono or colour versions of those). Cheers

That big region between the centre & 6 o'clock is lovely. And really liking the CaK images 👍🏾

Thanks @Pete Presland - its been great how active things are hasn't it. Still have about 4 days more of data to look at (although since I can only see the sun for an hour a day given how low it is, it's not that much )

Not sure if I prefer monochrome to the colourised 🤷🏾‍♂️

Wow, those are all beautiful. Are the last 3 proms through the CaK filter? Visually the 2nd one is my fave, although the clarity on the prom in the 4th 😲👍🏾👍🏾

Thanks & yes @malc-c I made sure to do that - both axes seemed to be running the same way, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed - let's see what actual guiding stats are like!🤞🏾

Thanks Mike that's v kind. It was great doing so much lunar & solar.

Hello, Finally getting round to going through some of the solar data captured in the last fortnight. Here's 9th Jan. Cheers, Vin

Replacement belt arrived & installed. Seems to work fine on an indoor dummy run, so it is back on the pier waiting for realignment and under-the-stars testing. Thanks all - will keep fingers crossed & report back on what happens (hopefully it will work, but also quite curious to see if/how much RMS improves with better RA fine-motion 🤞🏾) Apologies in advance everyone if that means clouds are on the way!

Thanks Mike @WestCoastCannuck - yes I'm far happier w my results of the 12th & 13th than these - didn't really have time to do a proper session (& part of me was going 'why are you gathering more data when you haven't even processed the earlier one yet' 😂 (on which point I have 7 days worth of solar to wade through...but have finally caught up w all my lunar data)). Love your work btw - I always try & make time to look at what you, @neil phillips & @astroavani post.