My first 2013 Sun in Ha (9-1-13)

[DrRobin]

Hi,

I was away for Xmas and New Year in sunnier climates, sadly without my scope. But now I am back and have recovered my solar scope from storage and blown the dust/snow/rain water (* delete as appropriate) from it's box and brought it back in to service.

Nice and clear all morning whilst I was working and then when I did get a break the high cloud was just starting to come in. Happy with the 2000 frames for the surface and 600 for the proms today, but would have liked to have done a close up on the large 'coal fire' prom on the right hand side.

[KE400]

Nice images Robin, it's been a long while since I have had chance to get out too. Really like the images & process as usual.

It's nice to see that there is still lots going on up there.

[DrRobin]

Thanks Kevin,

I was pleased with this picture as the surface detail is more uniform across the disc than I have managed before. There is loads of small scale activity at the mo, in fact if you have a look at Steve's white light there are so many sunspots. You had better get yourself back and get your scope out.

[KE400]

It certainly looks busy up there. I'm back in a couple of weeks so chomping at the bit to get back out and see what's going on.

Like Alexandra I too am faced with losing the sun in the back garden now so have come up with a plan of setting up in the garage which opens to the South, (the nieghbours already think I'm mad haha!). Hopefuly it gives me the oportunity to get back to imaging. I tried an outing over my brief holidays to image Jupiter one night but the seeing was horrendous so failed miserably.

Looking forward to some solar imaging that's for sure......

[DrRobin]

I am using my garage at home at the moment, it faces south and we live on hill with nothing opposite, so it gets the sun from just before 9am to about 1:30pm before it goes behind trees at this time of the year. The garage has an automatic door, so if I need to go in or the sun goes, I just put the door down and leave the scope tracking, it is absolutely ideal.

I also take my Lunt in to work on promising days and have 30 - 45 minutes if it is clear and time permits. That is why I wanted the focal reducer, so I could get a snap in one go.

I was out on Tuesday night doing a final collimation on my C11 (what a game that was, even the crayford focuser was out of alignment) and as the weather cleared (there was some high cloud) had a go at Jupiter. My results were much better, still trying to process them now, so it demonstrates how collimation really effects detail, especially when a Barlow is used. That Hotech I bought is really good, not the sort of thing you need all the time and a bit expensive, but it means that I am getting better views from my C11 which has to be worth while.

Anyway once complete I will post a pic in the planets section.

[Montana]

These are excellent Robin you are making jealous, I'd love to see the sun at the moment.

Alexandra

[KE400]

I'll keep an eye out for your Jupiter image, the collimation issue sounds very frustrating. I will have to take some images of out of focussed stars to show what my collimation is like and add them to your earlier post regarding your problems with the Edge 11's collimation.

It's nice that your solar work is giving great results, I know I have suffered with planetary imaging of late too and having solar work available too certainly eased my frustrations with the other.