AR2365 from Tuesday, 9th June - only just!

[Luke]

Hi all,

This is one from yesterday morning. I only just managed to take this snap. I got about 15 seconds of it before total cloud out   The clouds really caught me on the hop as they sneaked over our neighbour's roof from North East, instead of taking their time to arrive from the nice view over to the west. My own fault for not snapping the AR's first, I was hunting for proms instead of banking the lovely AR's. Hope the others come out okay, they got more than 15 seconds. Thanks for looking! Luke

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AR2365, 9th June, 2015

Equinox 120, Quark Chromosphere, Grasshopper 3 camera (ICX687), 0.5x reducer

[David Smith]

Nice one Luke. Cloudy here today so far. Fingers crossed for later

[dazzaa1966]

Nice image Luke. A quick question. I'm thinking of getting the equinox and wandering what the focuser was like. If not good and having to upgrade to something like a moonlite,then wouldn't it make more sense buying the eds pro and upgrading that focuser. My thinking being that both scopes have the same optics thus saving me over £300.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Well caught!

[Dave Smith]

Nice one Luke. I haven't been out for a couple of days now and am getting withdrawal symptoms. Could clear later.

Dave

[Luke]

Nice image Luke. A quick question. I'm thinking of getting the equinox and wandering what the focuser was like. If not good and having to upgrade to something like a moonlite,then wouldn't it make more sense buying the eds pro and upgrading that focuser. My thinking being that both scopes have the same optics thus saving me over £300.

Thanks! re: Equinox, first I should say I am not very mechanically minded, others may fare better who know what they are doing! But I tried adjusting the Equinox focuser and it's okay at first but after a while seems prone to slipping. The last time it happened, it slipped without me noticing for a while, and I had some out of focus shots

So I thought, right, I am gonna upgrade you, I get enough cloud as it is without throwing some shots away! Not important for Sol I think, but I also found that the lock on the Equinox focuser shifted focus. I don't lock for solar and maybe I didn't really need to lock for DSO?

If I was buying again, I might veer towards the cheaper DS-Pro, my thinking being, I would likely upgrade the focuser anyway. I think main thing I would miss from the Equinox is the retractable dew shield. I tend to have the dew shield out, to protect from early morning frost, to generally protect the lens a bit and to shield the lens from bird target practice - near miss the other day, wouldn't fancy having to wipe that mess off the lens! Double Baader Wonder Fluid!!

But when the wind picks up and the scope is rocking too much, I retract the sheild a fair bit, all the way if needs be. So that's probably a little more convenient than the fixed dew shield of DS-Pro. I think the DS-Pro's unscrews, so not a huge hassle.

What I love about my 100mm DS Pro is it feels very light for its size. The Equinox 120 does have a very nice build quality on the tube, it feels very solid. The 100 felt flimsy in comparison at first, but in practice it seems solid enough for general handling.

Hope that helps. Boith scopes are a joy to use with the Quark! If I didn't have a Tele Vue 85, I'd get the 80 as well. These SW doublets seem well suited to solar.

Luke

[dazzaa1966]

Thanks Luke. Your imput has steered me towards the Ds-Pro. The price difference will pay for the focuser upgrade.

[Montana]

A beautiful image :) you are lucky to be able to image on work days as these are consistently sunny compared to weekends, I should do a scientific study on it of course with exception to work days when I am holiday.

What brand of focal reducer 0.5x do you use?

Alexandra

[Luke]

I have noticed this clouds vs clear pattern too, Alexandra! There is a disturbance in the force, we need more of your SF100 images! Hope you get plenty of sun soon. I am very lucky I can do solar brekky on weekdays, that worked out lucky there and I am more of a morning person anyway. Before this session I took a few pot shots at the moon too.   Hope to process those soon and find out if I managed to get the big ASI chip all in focus this time and not tilted   Bet it's dead square for solar h-alpha to maximize newton's rings!

I use a Revelation 1.25 inch 0.5x reducer, about £20:

http://telescopehouse.com/acatalog/Revelation-0.5x-Focal-Reducer-1.25-.html

A few notes on it in case it helps anyone:

The reduction varies depending on distance to the camera chip. I get about 0.7x with my ASI174 and about 0.55x with my Grasshopper 3. With the Quark and ASI174, I got strong vignetting when the reduction was closer to 0.5x. I cut a nosepiece down to a shorter length (well I also have a Baader Glass Path corrector in the optical train - don't ask!) and at about 0.7x reduction the vignetting is minor and is easily removed with a flat, with no loss of detail as far as I can tell (not that I have had that much of a chance to experiment thanks to the sucky weekends).

A beautiful image :) you are lucky to be able to image on work days as these are consistently sunny compared to weekends, I should do a scientific study on it of course with exception to work days when I am holiday.

What brand of focal reducer 0.5x do you use?

Alexandra

[Davey-T]

Very nice Luke, Sun didn't appear here until about four o'clock but still blowing a gale, managed a couple of vid's.

Dave

[Luke]

Thanks, Dave, glad you got some captures in Zip for me today, but got lucky Mon and Tuesday.

I forgot to say, weekend forecast is rubbish, normal serivce has been resumed after last weekend's blip!!

[Ewan]

Bang on for focus Luke well done, very nice close detail you caught.

[Pete Presland]

Nice detail in and around the spot.