Sun 3rd November PST

[Montana]

The neighbour's tree has grown significantly this year and already the Sun is getting lost in it at midday so I think it will only be the PST now until February as it fits in tiny places. I had to move 3 times in the hour on Saturday to miss it's waving branches.

First the single stack view and I couldn't tune it as on-band was past the bump stop this has worsened since last year too. So only the bottom right is on-band.

2012-11-03 12-31-06 SS by Alexandra's Astronomy, on Flickr

Next the double stack view:

2012-11-03 12-43-02 DS by Alexandra's Astronomy, on Flickr

and the double stack rotated at 180 degrees:

2012-11-03 12-47-28 DS 180 by Alexandra's Astronomy, on Flickr

and a close up with the 2x barlow, I couldn't find any point of focus and the image seems doubled to me:

2012-11-03 f colour by Alexandra's Astronomy, on Flickr

Next a prominence at 2x single stack mode

2012-11-03 13-37-51 f colour by Alexandra's Astronomy, on Flickr

and lastly Calciium K version of a very blank Sun (CaK PST)

2012-11-03 13-05-41 by Alexandra's Astronomy, on Flickr

Camera DMK41, stacked in Registax 5 and wavelets. In the full discs some Smart sharpen was also applied in CS5.

Kind regards

Alexandra

[Steve Ward]

Great images as usual Alexandra , all you need now is one of my patent 10 foot piers to get you the shot above the offending greenery . . .

Steve.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Really nice work!

[sologuitarist61]

Great stuff Alexandra - wonderful images!!

[Montana]

Thanks guys

Steve

Alexandra

[Carbon60]

Hi Alexandra,

You've probably explained this before in other posts, but your Ha full disk shots are taken using a PST with DMK41. So how do you get the PST to focus and how do you reduce the size of the solar image to fit onto the DMK41 chip? I assume you are using a focal reducer, but mine just won't work at all. I can't achieve focus and can only do so with a barlow, which, of course, takes things the wrong way by magnifying rather than reducing the image size.

Sorry for such a basic question, but this is a frustration!! My 150mm Ha solarscope is fine for 'close up views' but I cannot get a good full disk image in one shot!

Thanks

Stu.

[KE400]

Excellent as usual Alexandra, really good job

[Montana]

Thanks for the nice comments

Stu, I think it seems that all PST's are made different. Certainly for around 90% of all PST's just using a short shoulderless nosepiece on the DMK41 works perfectly and it comes to focus, see here (scroll down and it is the first on the 'Accessories for astro camera's' http://www.modernastronomy.com/camerasAstroVideo.html#mintron12v and the image scale at prime focus looks like this on the chip

2011-12-28 11-13-38 by Alexandra's Astronomy, on Flickr

But it does seem that this doesn't solve the problem for the odd PST and DrRobin has a solution for that and I think it involves a hacksaw. I hope this helps a bit

Alexandra

[Carbon60]

Thanks Alexandra.

I'll give it a go and see if this works in my case. Knowing my luck....... We'll see.

Also meant to say, great images, as usual.

Thanks for the tip.

Regards

Stu.

[DrRobin]

Hi,

Nice shots for a PST, especially your double stack pics, very nice. I can't really see the double image, but it looks like a feint Newton rings on the 2x?

I know what you mean about neighbours trees, there is one in the garden next east of my observing site which has grown and grown. Apparently there is a preservation order on it, otherwise the neighbour would cut it down. Weill have to have a chat about some pruning.

But the real problem trees are to the south west, that is where the sun is now at 14:30 onwards, so it's a dead loss after then. I was lucky on Sunday, I started at 12:00, put a coat over my scope for 30mins as the fog came down then had around an hour in misty conditions. Today, from work, was better, but only had time for 30mins.

[Carbon60]

Thanks for the tip Alexandra. Short nosepiece solved the problem. First processed image of full disc (ignore the dirty 'blob'), but time was pressing and I didn't have time to clean any surfaces within the light path.

The sun was very low and luckily I managed to snatch this shot as the sun moved between neighbouring trees and a house. My main aim was just to try out the new nosepiece.

Regards

Stu.

Capture 10_11_2012 14_02_13_colour.tif

[Montana]

Great!!

Alexandra

[KE400]

Looking good Stu, like your choice of colouring too.