Quark Chromosphere Test and First Light

[TakMan]

Have been umming and ahing for months (years!) over one of these Hydrogen Alpha ‘eyepieces’ since seeing and being amazed at the view through one when we went to the The International Astronomy Show…

My night time observing buddy has been saying I should get one as well for ages…. but I was put off by the increasing price (they’ve gone from £650 at launch to over a grand now) and the reports of quality control issues and the response from the manufacturers to sort the problems…

So, when one came up on AB&S just over a week ago, including a 32mm Televue Plossl eyepiece I decided to take the plunge (despite the decent price giving me slight worries that something may be amiss).

I’d made contact with the seller in the week, exchanged contact details and all appeared OK – he sounded like a decent chap. He duly delivered it by hand on the Friday evening and we spent an hour having an ‘astro’ chat over a cuppa!

It seems that he just could "not get on with the Quark" (perhaps he thought it wasn't a 'good' one, hence the inclusion of the eyepiece..?) In hindsight, I wonder if the actual issue was his scope - a Celestron 102ST, or more likely the focuser not being 'true'. It wouldn't take much droop for the incoming light to loose its parallelism and make the Quark go off-band...?

Anyway, surprise, surprise the wife was away over the weekend AND Saturday was clear – perhaps ‘new equipment syndrome’ doesn’t affect solar gear!?

Looking at the various ‘Solar Imaging/Observing’ threads on the forums you get better views first or last thing in the day… by the time though I’d done my chores, finished the Club’s Solargraphs and set the scope up, it was lunchtime (I’d even got up early just so I could make a new sun-shield for the scope – where does the time go?!)

With some trepidation I placed the Quark in the 2″ Televue Everbright diagonal (fitted with a 2″ extension tube sitting inside the focuser end and a Baader 2″ UV/IR cut filter) and waited for the Quark to come up to temperature before taking a peak…

No full disk solar views here (as expected – done the homework you see)!

With the Quark’s inbuilt Barlow, the 816mm f/8 Takahashi TSA-102s is effectively running at F/32 and 3264mm focal length (Daystar recommend between f/27-32 for the best performance). The Televue 32mm Plossl included in the sale giving a hefty 102x mag.

Thankfully the Quark appears to be a good one with a fairly tight bandpass (Angstrom). No apparent ‘sweet spot’ – just an evenly illuminated and focused view across the field, no ‘banding’ either… loads of surface detail – boiling in and out of focus.

The Quark came initially from The Widescreen Centre who had stuck a note to the box: “Dimmer image, good prominence views and EXCELLENT surface details. Would be good for imaging with CCD.”

Once that was out of the way I took a picture with the iPhone6 held up to the eyepiece (which I’ve always found REALLY difficult to do), to send to my mate (who was coming over for an afternoon of solar observing/imaging with his Equinox 80 and Quark).

Then we enjoyed a good few hours observing, trying out some different eyepieces (Andy’s 17mm Vixen is too much for my set-up at 192x), experimenting with our DMK cameras and I got the sketch pad out as well.

Very pleased with the purchase and I think that really does complete the astro purchases…well the ‘big’ ones anyway…

Already purchased this morning a S/H 40mm Televue Plossl for a less magnified view when conditions don’t allow more (81x) and now looking for a 25mm TV Plossl (130x) to complete the solar set-up!

Even better, it gives the old Tak refractor a new purpose after it had become somewhat redundant after importing the TEC140 ED APO. It becomes the ‘solar scope’ with the Quark for Ha and white light views with the Baader Cool Ceramic Herschel Wedge.

Damian

Prominence – only a single frame from a (second hand) old ‘Firewire’ DMK41 (it’s first light as well), captured at 2.41pm – the same one as that drawn first at 2pm above. Controlled via OACapture on my 2016/17 MacBook Pro. 'Controlled' in the loosest of terms(!)', no idea what I was really doing with webcam imaging and trying to MANUALLY guide the mount at f/32... perhaps one day I'll get the hand tracking control unit from the States that was promised 2+ years ago....

[xtreemchaos]

well done mate, you will not regret getting the quark, I love mine, ive had it since feb and it amazes me everyday "weather permiting", you should try some ccd imaging with it, thay take fantastic shots.  clear skys, charl.

[Pig]

Nice one Damian, and welcome to the light side. Just for your reference there are another couple of eyepieces in my signature,as well as the TV plossll, that work pretty welll with the Quark.

[Ewan]

Nice results there well done. The best way IMO of getting into solar viewing for you, it excels even more if you do imaging as I dare say you will see.

Keep them coming ;-)

[TakMan]

Thanks guys for the welcome... to the 'Light Side' and the info re: eyepieces.

Indeed, we both commented on Saturday that 'Solar' is far more of a social affair...

Clear skies,

Damian