Ags

I started with a quick tour of some globulars - M3, M53, M13 and M92. The difference in brightness between them is remarkable. Lyra was rising, so paid my first visit of the year to Epsilon Lyrae, at 60x and 66 mm aperture I couldn't quite split the pairs, although each was clearly elongated. Zoomed out at 30x with the Speers-WALER 13.4, Epsilon and Zeta just about fitted in the view with Vega, always an enjoyable sight. Beta Lyra looked strongly colored, yellow and blue which I don't recall noting before. The Ring Nebula looked more like a solid disk, but despite Charles Messier's claims to the contrary, it looks nothing like a comet. 😆 M81 and M82 made a nice pairing in the Speers-WALER, albeit rather faint. I was deliberately using the Speers-WALER a lot tonight because I keep thinking about selling it. Not sure why I want to replace it... the image is excellent, and the view is very comfortable with no blackouts.

I tried answering this thread before and ended up listing all my eyepieces 🤣 But now I have a Solar Scout, so the picture has changed. Eyepiece 1: Ha Solar: Vixen NPL 30 mm Eyepiece 2: Dark sky trips: Vixen NPL 20 mm Eyepiece 3: White light solar, lunar, planetary, DSOs, doubles: Explore Scientific 6.7 mm

Over the past couple of weeks I have been using my Solar Scout most frequently, but overall the most used scope must be the ZS66- fun-sized and versatile. It does white light solar, doubles, dso, travel, lunar and a bit of planetary. Good for photography too. My C6 only comes out on special occasions.

Especially at the old price I paid, it's not a bad deal, but you can't judge just by a couple of pictures. Visually, the full aperture really shows proms well with very fine detail. Proms don't need a very narrow bandpass, but they do need a lot of light. Secondly, the wider aperture increases exit pupil size, allowing for higher magnifications at the expense of a subtle loss of contrast.

Cynically, an achro 60 mm doublet is cheap, and a 60 mm solar scope will sell a bit better than a 30 mm one! I can't see any circumstance where an 8 ms frame will be better than a 2 ms frame. Given the difference in aperture, they captured the same amount of light and 2 ms will freeze the seeing much better. However I agree the comparison is a bit unfair. I processed the images identically to see the difference between the apertures - but if I was just shooting at 60 mm I would process it differently not at all like a 30 mm sequence. Also I was pressed for time and shot short sequences, and then used a high percentage (16%) of the frames. This doesn't favor resolution, where the 60 mm would shine. I'm also using a color camera, which loses a bit of resolution.

By the way, each sequence was processed identically, but I did vary the exposure lengths with aperture: 60 mm - 2 ms 52 mm - 3 ms 37 mm - 5 ms 30 mm - 8 ms

I tried shooting images with my Solar Scout at 60 mm, 52 mm, 37 mm and 30 mm aperture, to see how the f-ratio affected contrast. See my results below. In my opinion, 30 wins in an overview but what about detail? Here's a full disk at 30 mm: Here it is processed as an honest eyepiece view. Makes the faculae pop!

I slew at 8 at night to keep the noise down.

I feel quite the opposite, if I'm not outside it's not astronomy 😃

A clear night blighted by milky light pollution. Scanning about with the ZS66, the light pollution seemed to be at an all time worst - even bright stars seemed veiled in darkness. Wait a minute... isn't the moon filter still screwed in? 🤣 I had a go at resolving the Leo Triplet - on a poor night and Bortle 9, not gonna happen! I wanted to spot a few globs, so I started with M53, two fifths of the way from Arcturus to Denebola. I could only locate it by matching star patterns in the finder, it didn't pop out. M3, halfway between Arcturus and Cor Caroli was somewhat brighter. M13 was only difficult because only one star of the Keystone was visible, but it was a bright and lovely sight in the ZS66. M92 was located with a single pan from M13. It seems smaller than M13 but with a brighter core. Two doubles tonight - Algeiba, barely split at 60x, and Cor Caroli.

It was a tuning issue. Making a massive change from -3 to +2 resolved the issue. I still have to try +3 to +5 though...

I upgraded. No issues, except that the task bar is locked to the bottom of the screen, whereas I have always preferred to orient it along the left edge.

Well, we do live on a dustball the size of a planet 😀

On a very trivial note, I think I have also hit on just the right shade of yellow for me 🤣

Yes, it is a steep learning curve, but I can see improvements from image to image. Super happy with this one.

I am very pleased with this one, now I am on the right track with tuning my SS60-DS. Tuned to +2, 43 mm aperture. No flats, I just moved the sun around the sensor a bit. Lots of cloud - I had to trim the SER file down to eliminate the worst parts. AS3!, IMPPG, GIMP. Best 10% of 600 frames.

I think we are on the right track. Here is +0 vs +2. Took a lot more care over focus today and shot with aperture slightly reduced to 43 mm for a bit more contrast. Will try 52 mm again tomorrow. Both images are sharpened and stretched identically im IMPPG and then colorized identically in GIMP.

This was shot at f18 by the way (aperture 52 mm). One problem I have with tuning set to zero is the surface texture is finer and lower contrast, and AS3! struggle to stack the edges.

Yes, looking at the pictures it seems 0 is the best. I'll try shoot some new tests at -1, 0, and 1.

I shot three images with my Solar Scout 60 tuned to -5, -3 and 0. At 0 it seems filaments are more apparent, while at -5 the active region is more smokey and the surface is more contrasty... But which of these settings is "correct"? Judging with an eyepiece I seem to prefer -3. Maybe I shout try +3 too? In any case, what do these differences mean? Am I seeing different altitudes of hydrogen with each setting? Apologies for the quality of the images. I was experimenting to avoid the need for flats by drifting the sun aorund the sensor, but if the technique works, I have not mastered it.

Looking at Stellarium it looks like you got the phase right.

I found a 6 3 reducer cleaned up the image of my C6 too.

I recall looking at Mars through the same telescope around that time! I thought the view was very impressive. I could see all the canals 🤣

Hmmmm, could try this with my C6...

SS60-DS, ASI485MC, best 5% of 500 5 ms subs at gain 50