Heads up there is a Coronado Solarmax 60 on ABS

[DrRobin]

A very worthy imaging scope, hence the reason for posting here.

http://telescopeoutlet.co.uk/index.php/coronado-solarmax-60-ii-bf10.html

Robin

[Steve Ward]

Saw this earlier , still out of my reach unfortunately . . .

Am saving for one of Mr Huggetts masterpieces but it's a slow journey ...

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

It now lists as "0 available" so I guess somebody snapped it up

[Sarah]

Thanks for the heads up Robin. Luke and I had already decided to add a second solar scope to our existing Solarmax 60 DS so this seemed like a good buy! Had a bit of an opportunity to view through it over the weekend, in between all the clouds and showers. We also compared it, side by side, with our existing one (single stacked) and we are very happy with what we have seen so far. Hopefully we can get an opportunity to try imaging with it soon!

Sarah

[DrRobin]

Hey great news Sarah, I hope you enjoy it and look forward to seeing the results. Of course now that you have two there will be no fights over who gets to look through it.

Robin

[Luke]

The two single stacked SM60's also made it a bit easier to bring a conclusion to our eyepiece shootout: 8mm Radian versus 8mm Delos!

We both agreed that the winner was the Radian, which gave a bit more contrast between the proms and the background. Which prompted me to put our 5mm Radian in, and that also gave a good contrasty view.

Any ideas why the Radian was better?

[Luke]

Many thanks, Robin, the heads up was great timing for us

Hope to get some lunchtime viewing in at work among other things, without one of us missing out!

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Regarding the EP shootout, when testing EPs in monochrome light, chromatic aberration is not an issue, so a slightly simpler design might be better, due to fewer glass-air interfaces.

[Luke]

We managed to get an imaging session in this morning with the new scope. A quick test below. All seems to be okay, I hope! I think the inverted outer red glow is my fault

This solar imaging business is fun, I thought imaging was meant to be painful

25/06/2013 - Solar Max 60 SS / Grasshopper 3

[DrRobin]

Very nice Luke. I had a go at 8am this morning, still processing the results, but there was high cloud/haze that was limiting the seeing, you might also have been getting a bit of that. I have found solar imaging easier than DSOs, but maybe it is down to the fact that I get more practise at solar.

Nice camera as well, what sort of frame rate/resolution did you get out of your Grasshopper 3?

Robin

[Luke]

Thanks, Robin.

This morning I was up and running in about 15 mins, grabbed half an hour of shots taking my time, packed away again in 10 mins, all at a leisurely place. With DSO's it's sometimes two hours before I even get my first shot done, as we have no obsy!

I also grabbed a few views through the double stack while Sarah used the single stack to image and got to work with a big smile on my face. To be done and dusted in an hour, drinking a morning coffee in lovely sunshine, I could get used to that

The processing I still find difficult, but I like graphics software anyway, so have fun playing around with that.

Our Grasshopper is the 2.8 mono version. It does 1928x1448 at 26 FPS. The test shot was 604x296 pixels at 60 FPS. I'm not sure it made sense to do that fast a rate at 400 mm focal length? We hope to use the Grasshopper on moon and planets as well, but got it mainly for solar having been astonished by the quality of images posted here

Look forward to seeing your results from this morning!

[DrRobin]

Likewise, no obs for me either, I want one but my missus has no interest and doesn't see why she should loose some of her garden. I manage okay, we have a large dry summerhouse and I sunk a concrete block under the decking in front of that. I keep my big scopes in there along with the EQ6 and pier, everything else lives in the house. I can usually be set up, aligned and imaging DSOs within an hour, but with all of the light in the sky at the mo, anything before midnight is useless. Planets are much faster, but I don't both aligning for them, just assume my pier goes back in the same place.

For solar, my rig is more portable, so I either set up in the garage, at work or in the back garden depending on where I am and where the sun is. It usually takes about 10 minutes to get set up.

I still spend longer processing images than I do taking them, even if you exclude the time it takes for AS!2 or Registax to run.

You can see today's efforts in the following link.

The Point Grey cameras look interesting, I am slowly moving towards buying a mono camera and filters for DSO's and could use my DMK41 or DMK21 for planets with the filter wheel, but might add a mono Point Grey camera for planets and solar.

Robin