Dabbling In Solar Imaging

[Skylook123]

I've had an Orion Solar System Imaging web cam for several months, and have been slowly trying to master it. I'm using it with a Lunt LS60THa/B600. The imager has a built-in 5mm equivalent lens, so that's what you have to work with.

What I've learned is, set up is challenging. At that focal length, focusing is nearly the impossible dream using the laptop screen. The sun is awesome in a 9mm Nagler, but shifting over to the imager is a constant fiddle. Then, the guidance with the imager gives NO suggestions on the the presettings that need to be adjusted. The imager is supposed to be intended for sun, moon, and planets. Talk about dynamic range! And a dozen parameters need setting, not many of which make a whole lot of sense.

Here is my eighth try in three months. It is the first frame of a 30 second, 450 frame AVI video the camera produces. Due to some cloud effects, plus the fact it was mounted on a manual az-el tripod so drifted considerably across the frame in 30 seconds, meant the stacking process was not very productive. Next time I will have to bias the centering on the opposite side of the motion to get more content. But the clouds came and stayed, so this is a start.

Look at all the action going on, even with a defocused image. Old Sol is getting stirred up.

[Montana]

I think you have done extremely well given the difficulties. You can see many of the details I saw yesterday, so it's a good record of your viewing.

Alexandra

[Skylook123]

Thank you for the kind words, Alexandra. The video was awesome, extremely rich in details, but I haven't learned the fine art of hi-res extraction. Each AVI frame is 2MB, but using 2 free and one purchased extraction tools, I can only get about 100K in the JPG. I only had about 20 minutes time between cloud banks, so I passed up my Atlas mount for the manual az-el. After eight times out with the setup, I'm starting to learn the setting up part. Another 10, 20 years and I'll have it nailed down.

I always claimed I would only ever do eyeball visual observing. Doggone, I feel the pull from the black hole of equipment and post processing. Sigh.....