27-03-2017 Quark images excuse the conditions though

[Ewan]

That time of year again & yes I am back out from under the rock, weather has not been the best for most of us so far this year but it should get better soon enough.

Anyway hazy conditions but thought it was about time I got back in the Solar saddle & grab a few captures.

Usual setup :-

AZEQ6-GT, 152mm TecnoSky, Quark Chromosphere, PGIMX 174.

Best 15% (tried some 40% as manipulation can be easier)  used from each stack, stacks were captured for 20 seconds maximum ,  1700 frames up to 5000 frames.

Well with The World's HFT competition coming up in April I am hoping the weather really does get a lot better, only two weeks practice for me & my lad left ;-)

Thanks for looking & clear skies all.

Atb 

[xtreemchaos]

great shots Ewan under those conditions mate, great to see you back. its been solid cloud here for 2 days, hoping for better skys tomorrow. thanks, charl.

[Ewan]

9 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

great shots Ewan under those conditions mate, great to see you back. its been solid cloud here for 2 days, hoping for better skys tomorrow. thanks, charl.

Thing is Charl, all the months I am not posting are because the sun is just not in view at all, that & my house faces the wrong way ;-)

Nice to be able to see the orb once more but as you say conditions not the best yet.

What Solar Minimum :-)

[Pieter]

I am genuinely amazed by these shots. I did not even know this kind of photographs were possible with any scope...

beautiful!

[Pig]

Great images Ewan... and that's with excused conditions !!!  Fantastic

[ngwillym]

Ewan,

Welcome back out of the darkness :-)

I notice you are using a 152mm scope! What ERFs are you using (if any). I was thinking of sticking my Quark on the end of my 127mm Apo, so looking for any advice to avoid melting stuff.

 

thanks in advance

Neil

 

[Davey-T]

Good to see you back with a bang Ewan, and some ARs laid on specially, looks like we may get a couple of sunny days now.

Missing my Quark as Daystar are still playing silly beggars, it's been broken since before Christmas.

Dave

[Pete Presland]

Nothing much wrong with those images, plenty of detail visible there. 

[johnfosteruk]

Outstanding images under the conditions Ewan. 

[Ewan]

7 hours ago, Davey-T said:

Good to see you back with a bang Ewan, and some ARs laid on specially, looks like we may get a couple of sunny days now.

Missing my Quark as Daystar are still playing silly beggars, it's been broken since before Christmas.

Dave

Awwww Dave I didn't even know mate, sorry to hear that. What went wrong with it ?  (i'll be guessing the tuner), since Christmas is way too long a turnaround as well. Haven't you been 'badgering' Jen with emails ?

I really wasn't ignoring you guys on here, in fact I have been 'popping' on when I could to look at the great images being put up ;-)

As you know Dave my Solar imaging 'year' ended early as the disc is just too low & my ^%££^&&** house faces the wrong way or I would be 'soalring' all year :-), do you think it would be selfish to ask the missus if we can sell up & move just to get better solar / datk sky views ?

Atb mate & glad to be back.

PS fingers crossed for your Quarks swift return.

[Ewan]

7 hours ago, ngwillym said:

Ewan,

Welcome back out of the darkness :-)

I notice you are using a 152mm scope! What ERFs are you using (if any). I was thinking of sticking my Quark on the end of my 127mm Apo, so looking for any advice to avoid melting stuff.

 

thanks in advance

Neil

 

Hi Neil,

Glad they were ok.

Yes I use a Baader D-ERF, it's only @ 135mm not 165mm, it wasn't the cost but getting as near to F30 was the plan, the scopes FL of 900mm divided by the D-ERF of 135mm = 6.6 multiplied by the Quarks telecentric of 4.3 (or could be 4.3 as there was a small change) got me to F28 - F28.6.

There's a guy on Solarchat keeps trying to tell me I would have been better off with the 165mm ERF & showing some images using a 150mm scope & 165 D-ERF as well, yes they do show more surface detail I have to admit but he is from Norway, Denmark or some such place & his sky & seeing is a lot better than the UK so I would expect this.

Don't go with an internal Ha filter Neil as you will just be losing out on detail, better off saving the £'s & going the whole hog if I am honest.

Going with the 152mm & 135mm D-ERF also meant (for me anyway) that I would be wanting to collect the data as quick as I could so I forked out for a Point Grey Grasshopper 3 IMX174 & a Samsung EVO 850 SSD, as the frame rate from the camera is very high I needed everything else to be quicker as well. I have tried a few captures @ 2ms but with full Gain, full Gain would normally mean more noise but the payoff is that you can captures thousands of frames in 20 seconds you can stack a lot more (50% sometimes) depending on seeing.

I have heard of people using a 2" UV/IR filter with a 127mm scope as advised by Sean at Daystar, might be an idea to call them & have a quick word though.

Pm me anytime Neil if I can help in any way.

Atb

 

[Davey-T]

1 hour ago, Ewan said:

Awwww Dave I didn't even know mate, sorry to hear that. What went wrong with it ?  (i'll be guessing the tuner), since Christmas is way too long a turnaround as well. Haven't you been 'badgering' Jen with emails ?

I really wasn't ignoring you guys on here, in fact I have been 'popping' on when I could to look at the great images being put up ;-)

As you know Dave my Solar imaging 'year' ended early as the disc is just too low & my ^%££^&&** house faces the wrong way or I would be 'soalring' all year :-), do you think it would be selfish to ask the missus if we can sell up & move just to get better solar / datk sky views ?

Atb mate & glad to be back.

PS fingers crossed for your Quarks swift return.

Yes LED went red instead of green, went back to Daystar to be "fixed" but when it returned it just stayed orange, now waiting on a replacement but they're not rushing themselves.

Dave

[xtreemchaos]

yer Ewan sell up and move to wales mate , lots of sun here in the south, apart from the last few days that's been dismal " I must of offended the cloud gods".. charl.