IB20

I have a 1.25” Lunt Herschel wedge which I use in a 3” refractor, it has never even got slightly warm to the touch.

A nice image of Jupiter’s ring here. 😃

Ah thanks, that’s very kind. I do sometimes but they’re only single phone snaps, feels a bit intimidating going up against proper imagers! Being primarily an observer I natural gravitate towards this part of the forum too.

If seeing is good you can see plenty of detail in large sunspots. The darker region of the sunspot is the umbra and the greyer area surrounding the umbra is the penumbra. It’s possible to see striations and filaments in the penumbra in good seeing. The activity is “still” however but does change from hour to hour. If you monitor sunspots over days you’ll notice quite a lot of change from the sun’s activity and its rotation. I use a specialist solar wedge and a green continuum filter which I find brings out the detail a lot more than without one, especially the lighter contrasting areas called the faculae. Heres an unprocessed image straight from the eyepiece on my phone and a mono shot I’ve run through Adobe. I must say that the sharpness you see is better than the unprocessed version which at times can be astonishing clear. I love white light solar viewing, what’s not to like about astronomy in the sun and warmth!

This is a nice video if you’re looking for a cheap solar system scope.

Firstly that refractor will most likely be garbage. It doesn’t seem to be from a well known manufacturer and looks to be the sort you’d get at a department store. It has a short focal length of 400mm making it a focal ratio of f5 which is quite “fast”. It will put a lot of strain on cheap eyepieces and I’d imagine there’d be quite of lot of aberration when looking at anything through it. I have at least heard of the Celestron although I haven’t used one. I’d almost certainly bet my life on that being a better scope entirely. Collimation isn’t that hard but depending on the type of reflector and its focal length can increase difficulty of doing it. Have you looked at the 2nd hand market? There’s an awesome https://www.astrobuysell.com Canadian community which you might be better off sourcing a scope from. You’d get a good 2nd hand dobsonian mounted reflector for little more than what you’re looking at.

The zoom out 🤯

Interesting. In comparisons between my 3” Achromat & APO in Continuum filter WL solar, the biggest noticeable differences were ability of the APO to take higher magnifications but also faculae seemed to pop more.

Really well detailed.

Lovely clear blue skies right now and some decent detail on the sun’s disc. AR3053 is huge, seems to have an umbral tail crackling through its penumbra. It’s good to have the morning sun back!

Today’s early sun in white light. Tak 76 DC, Pentax 7XW, Tak TOE 4mm and Baader solar continuum filter. Afocal hand held single image captured in Halide as RAW with iPhone 11. Processed & converted to mono in Lightroom.

Rupes Recta with the Tak & Pentax 3.5XW. Same capture details as above.

Chucking my first effort in, not huge amounts going on at the minute that plays well with phone cameras. This evening’s gloaming evening moon. Taken with a Tak 76DC, Pentax 10XW & 5XW with a hand held iPhone 11 using Halide to capture RAW images. A single image processed with Lightroom.

Well here’s an “OK” TEST image… If it doesn’t have spikes, it’s a galaxy 😃

This is the thing I really like about Astronomy. Everyone has their thing! Mine is planets, but there are galaxy hunters, imagers, winter fans, solar and lunar. Sometimes you just have to wait until it’s your turn. 😃

I haven’t bought a scope for a while, starting to get that itch…

Two new targets tonight with the 8” dob amongst some old favourites. M56 - extremely faint globular cluster in Lyra; struggling to compete with the twilit bright sky. One to return to under astronomical dark. NGC 6572 - beautiful turquoise-green planetary nebula in Ophiuchus. Appears starlight at low mag but unmistakable due to the colouration. The seeing would only support 120x, but appears more nebula like under higher mags. Fantastic little target.

Are the Lunt 40s better than the Coronado PSTs?

That really looks great. Like an upmarket Skywatcher! I definitely recommend one of these focuser upgrades, revolutionised my dob https://www.365astronomy.com/lacerta-dual-speed-1-10-microfocus-upgrade-kit-for-skywatcher-crayford-focusers it certainly looks the same focuser on the Starsense 8.

I have had a 13mm Delite and now own all the XWs from 3.5-10mm. The XWs are quite simply the best eyepieces I have ever used. Incredibly comfortable, superb quality and 70° AFOV. The twisting eyecup is so much better than the Delite’s mechanism which I found clumsy, it would also move when replacing caps. The views through the Delite were fantastic but IMO the XWs are just as good if not better with more FOV. The Televues also suffer from the dreaded undercut which really did start to annoy me. The DeLite did not come to focus in one of my scopes which was the reason I got rid, the Pentaxes work in all 3 of my scopes. I’m using the 7 & 5XW nearly every session in my 570mm refractor. I cannot wait to get the 5XW on Mars in my 8” dob, I genuinely think it’s the best eyepiece I’ve ever used.

Just had a lovely half an hour gazing at the sun with the Tak & wedge. AR3038 dominating the face of the solar disc with some really nice striation and filament structure in the penumbra of the larger sunspot. AR3034 umbra appears cleaved in half with a light bridge spanning the central region and there is plenty of visible faculae lighting up the limb of the disc around AR032. Absolutely tons of activity going on. Best and most consistent mag was 81x; tried the 2.5mm TOE and although too soupy for great views, was surprised at how easy it was to peer past the floaters. This EP will definitely pay dividends in my scope. Realised as I packed away that something had began weaving silk strands across the front of my scope which is incredibly annoying! 😫

My little angel poured a mug of cold tea over the floor and sneezed weetabix over me. 😇

Picked up a lovely mint TOE courtesy of @Stu. Will give me 228x in the Tak, so ready for some doubles and an astoundingly good planetary season. I think I can also say NO. MORE. EYEPIECES too 🤪.

Should be doable but it’s close! The wind and heat may make it 5x harder than it should be, but good luck! Personally I enjoyed fitting all 4.5 stars in even in a Tak TOE Ortho, I’m sure they aren’t 52°!