Solar Sun-day (8th Feb)

[DrRobin]

Hi,

A little bit of thin cloud today, but plenty of brightness in the sun and some warmth too, spring must be on it's way.  I decided to experiment today, first up was white light, then Calcium K-line and finally Ha with my Quark all taken with a William Optics ZS80. 

The WL & K-line both looked good but the Ha shots with my Quark were pretty much as always, lacking in contrast, detail and not really sharp.  I decided to break out my eyepiece and see what the Quark looked liked visually, pretty much a big red disc, bright but with almost no detail.  I looked and after a few seconds the dim outline of the large filament came in to view followed by the bright AR, but that was it, no detail, no surface and no other features.  I could only really see the central part of the large filament and it certainly wasn't impressive.  Any smaller than this and it wouldn't have been visible to the eye, so definately not working anywhere near to spec.

I decided to set up my Lunt 60 and try the eyepiece, pretty much everything you see in the image below was visible, conclusion my Quark is not working at all.  I tried fiddling with the tuning but it made almost no difference through the eyepiece even after waiting for it to get lock and go green.  Sadly it will be going back next week.  Hopefully they will replace it as it is no use in it's present state.

Lunt 60, DS, 1.5x barlow, ASI120MM-S.

WL, K-line and Ha close ups to follow.

Robin

[dazzaa1966]

Wow fantastic images Robin. ...

[DrRobin]

White light.

Robin

[Luke]

Stunning shots, Robin, for me especially number 3 

[sooot]

Great shots robin

[DrRobin]

K Line.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice collection. Lovely filaments. Interesting result with the K-line filter.

[David Smith]

Bad news about the Quark Robin. They are certainly capable of great things but the quality control seems pretty poor.

A great set of images though. Good job you have the trusty Lunt in your bag of tricks.

[Pete Presland]

love the images thay really do the huge filament proper justice!

[Montana]

Wow!! exceptional!! :)

Alexandra

[DrRobin]

Thanks guys.

A couple of nights out with Jupiter has meant I never processed a close up.  This was taken with my Lunt and 2x converter to try and get the same FoV as my Quark.  It came out rather well, sadly the shots with my Quark & 80mm didn't.

Robin

[Johan L]

Fantastic images!