DayStar Solar Scout SS60-DS 60mm H-alpha Solar Telescope

[RodAstro]

Yep very different

FireCapture, AutoStakkert 3 and ImPPG all free

It is possible to use the Quark unit on other scopes, you just need to make up an adapter for it see the link, I took this today.

https://solarchatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=28392

By the way 12" Revelation dobs are excellent.

[simmo39]

Scope has finally arrived, just need some sun to do some test runs. Looks well made.

[RodAstro]

Excellent

I got my best picture yet using the Scouts Quark unit on tuesday.

Cheers Rod

[RodAstro]

Looks like we will be getting a report tomorrow simmo39

Full day of sun for you over there

Good luck with your testing and you should still be able to see the active region near the edge of the sun and maybe some nice proms.

Rod

[simmo39]

35 minutes ago, RodAstro said:

Looks like we will be getting a report tomorrow simmo39

Full day of sun for you over there

Good luck with your testing and you should still be able to see the active region near the edge of the sun and maybe some nice proms.

Rod

Ill be out in the aflernoon as at work in the morning but ill be giving it a go.

[garryblueboy]

On 11/06/2020 at 22:10, RodAstro said:

Excellent

I got my best picture yet using the Scouts Quark unit on tuesday.

Cheers Rod

That’s a great shot well done 

[simmo39]

3 hours ago, garryblueboy said:

That’s a great shot well done 

Do you need a spacer for the camer to reach focus? or can it go straight onto the end of the scope?

[Geoff Lister]

18 minutes ago, simmo39 said:

Do you need a spacer for the camera to reach focus? or can it go straight onto the end of the scope?

With my GPCAM & x0.5 focal reducer, I keep the 90 degree star diagonal, remove the eyepiece, insert the camera, and adjust the focus.

Geoff

[simmo39]

6 hours ago, Geoff Lister said:

With my GPCAM & x0.5 focal reducer, I keep the 90 degree star diagonal, remove the eyepiece, insert the camera, and adjust the focus.

Geoff

Thanks for the pointer, I got some images after much faffing. Will have to see what I can do with the focuser.

[RodAstro]

Hi

The focuser could be a good point if machining was good.

The first scope I had it seems the objective was off centre as the sun revolved around the field as I focused. The scope I have now the sun's image only moves slightly when focusing.

I didn't need an extension tube to reach focus with my Opticstar or the ASI 174

[simmo39]

Well this is the first image of the sun i have done, not great but im happy with it. I think I will get to like this scope once I can get a handle on the focussing side.

[RodAstro]

Well that's a brilliant shot.

What camera are you using? Looks like a 0.7x reducer will get the whole sun on your chip.

How was your setup, did you stop down or full 60mm, did you use a camera tilter and what processing did you have to do?

Cheers Rod

[simmo39]

2 minutes ago, RodAstro said:

Well that's a brilliant shot.

What camera are you using? Looks like a 0.7x reducer will get the whole sun on your chip.

How was your setup, did you stop down or full 60mm, did you use a camera tilter and what processing did you have to do?

Cheers Rod

Hi Rod, thank you. Im using a ASI120mm with a 1.25 reducer and a IR filter. I had to do a bit of a fiddle to get the camera in the right place and need to sort out some proper spacers. The other thing i need to sort is a way to motorise the focusser to make life a bit easier. As  for the processing i ran the subs through AS3 and into reg6 and finally colour tweek in Affinity. I know its not the best pic but for my first run I am happy, I will do some more  work on it tomorrow. once again thanks for the help and pointers.

[david_taurus83]

On 11/06/2020 at 22:10, RodAstro said:

Excellent

I got my best picture yet using the Scouts Quark unit on tuesday.

Cheers Rod

That's great! Is this with the Solar Scout as is or have you somehow removed the Ha unit and mounted to a different scope?

[RodAstro]

Hi

The filter is easily removable but is not a standard fitting so I made a 2" adapter for it. The filter does have uneven illumination but with a little photo editing this is easily removed. It is very good on my SW 102 Startravel but this picture was taken with my 6" f15 smiapo where it now spends most of its time. I was unsure about the expense of the Quark and if it would work on my 6" so this seemed my best route. Problem is I now want a Daystar Quantum. I did have to do some work making a focal reducer to go before the 4x telecentric unit as f15 would have ended up at f60 and way to much for my seeing.

[assouptro]

On 06/06/2020 at 16:46, RodAstro said:

Yep very different

FireCapture, AutoStakkert 3 and ImPPG all free

It is possible to use the Quark unit on other scopes, you just need to make up an adapter for it see the link, I took this today.

https://solarchatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=28392

By the way 12" Revelation dobs are excellent.

Hey Rod 

great image! 
Can I ask you more about the home made adapter? 
have you any photos or more details about how you constructed it? 
I’d be really grateful! 
 

Many thanks 

Bryan 

[RodAstro]

Hi Bryan

Some pictures for you.

The first SS60-DS I got was almost in bits and the Quark unit was wobbling about, all four nylon tipped grub screws were very loose so it didn't take me long to realise how the scope was put together.

After removing the Quark unit I realised it was easy to make an adaptor. Firstly I machined out a 2" 40mm extension tube (the black bit) so the nose of the Quark went in up to the Quark retention rim for the grub screws.

I then got a bit of ally (the silver bit) and machined it out so it was a snug fit over the 40mm extension tube and added grub screws to hold it to the outside of the extension tube.

I left enough overhang of this adaptor ring to accept the Quark unit up to its flange and added another set of grub screws to hold the Quark.

It is quite crude really  but it works and is strong for the bino head. I used the extension tube as I needed the filter threads for the UV/IR filter that Daystar recommend for Quarks.

What I do find is there is very distinct variations in illumination across the  etalon hard to see visually but does show up in the field of the quite large ZWO ASI174mm chip. I go for the central dark area as my main area for my target and get the brightness about correct. Then after stacking and sharpening in ImPPG I select the bright areas by hand, with a lasso tool, with a large feather edge and darken them to match the darker area. What surprised me is  the bright areas are still on band so all the information is still in there. Once I have evened the image out I then finish processing. One thing to note is all etalons suffer from uneven Illumination Daystar just grade theirs so the best ones are in the Quantoms next are in Quarks and the SS scopes are maybe  the worst but still have good usable etalons as you can see by the image above. The etalons are not just graded by the uneven illumination but also bandwidth and maybe some other reasons so good luck with what you find.

[assouptro]

Thanks Rod 

I really appreciate the time you have taken to explain this to me. 

Do you have an image of the adapter attached to the Quark? 
did you leave the original Barlow lens inside? 

sorry to ask more questions, I am just learning about solar imaging but I’d love to be able to make my solar scout quark more flexible for use in my 80 or 100 Ed refractors 

Cheers 

Bryan

[assouptro]

Edited.

 

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by assouptro

[assouptro]

1 hour ago, RodAstro said:

Hi Bryan

Some pictures for you.

The first SS60-DS I got was almost in bits and the Quark unit was wobbling about, all four nylon tipped grub screws were very loose so it didn't take me long to realise how the scope was put together.

After removing the Quark unit I realised it was easy to make an adaptor. Firstly I machined out a 2" 40mm extension tube (the black bit) so the nose of the Quark went in up to the Quark retention rim for the grub screws.

I then got a bit of ally (the silver bit) and machined it out so it was a snug fit over the 40mm extension tube and added grub screws to hold it to the outside of the extension tube.

I left enough overhang of this adaptor ring to accept the Quark unit up to its flange and added another set of grub screws to hold the Quark.

It is quite crude really  but it works and is strong for the bino head. I used the extension tube as I needed the filter threads for the UV/IR filter that Daystar recommend for Quarks.

What I do find is there is very distinct variations in illumination across the  etalon hard to see visually but does show up in the field of the quite large ZWO ASI174mm chip. I go for the central dark area as my main area for my target and get the brightness about correct. Then after stacking and sharpening in ImPPG I select the bright areas by hand, with a lasso tool, with a large feather edge and darken them to match the darker area. What surprised me is  the bright areas are still on band so all the information is still in there. Once I have evened the image out I then finish processing. One thing to note is all etalons suffer from uneven Illumination Daystar just grade theirs so the best ones are in the Quantoms next are in Quarks and the SS scopes are maybe  the worst but still have good usable etalons as you can see by the image above. The etalons are not just graded by the uneven illumination but also bandwidth and maybe some other reasons so good luck with what you find.

Thanks Rod

Do you think this will this work?

I have a revelation Astro self centering 50mm extension tube. 
you can unscrew the self  centering mechanism 

 

which leaves you with a wider aperture to receive the Quark up to the flange.

 

it’s not a snug fit but I could remedy this by tapping some grub screws in and some sort of nylon spacer (yet to be found) 

Its just an idea? 
without the locking mechanism the extension tube is 42.7mm from the flange of the Quark to the beginning of the 2” nosepiece. 
 

Cheers 

Bryan

[RodAstro]

Hi Bryan

That looks perfect all you need to do is drill and tap the holes for the grub screws and job done. If you use the original screws they are imperial 2BA, but metric 4mm will do the job. Because I don't rotate the unit at this point I use some ball ended grub screws, they are a bit more solid than the nylon tipped ones.

You need to keep the barlow unit, it is not actually a barlow it is a telecentric focal extender, unlike a barlow that just alters the cone of the light beam the theocentric actually  gives you a parallel light beam or almost parallel and it is this beam that makes the daystar etalons work well. You could replace it with a 2X edmund scientific telecentric if you need lower power. What I have done though to reduce my effective focal length is on my 6" F15 is just use a focal reducer before the quark telecentric unit  to reduce the final F ratio.

A good filter to use before the quark is the Baader 35nm Ha this will reduce the pressure on the small Andover blocking filter at the front of the Quark and make it last longer than with just a UV/IR.

Cheers Rod

[assouptro]

2 hours ago, RodAstro said:

Hi Bryan

That looks perfect all you need to do is drill and tap the holes for the grub screws and job done. If you use the original screws they are imperial 2BA, but metric 4mm will do the job. Because I don't rotate the unit at this point I use some ball ended grub screws, they are a bit more solid than the nylon tipped ones.

You need to keep the barlow unit, it is not actually a barlow it is a telecentric focal extender, unlike a barlow that just alters the cone of the light beam the theocentric actually  gives you a parallel light beam or almost parallel and it is this beam that makes the daystar etalons work well. You could replace it with a 2X edmund scientific telecentric if you need lower power. What I have done though to reduce my effective focal length is on my 6" F15 is just use a focal reducer before the quark telecentric unit  to reduce the final F ratio.

A good filter to use before the quark is the Baader 35nm Ha this will reduce the pressure on the small Andover blocking filter at the front of the Quark and make it last longer than with just a UV/IR.

Cheers Rod

Rod.... what can I say? 
Thank you! 

you’re awesome! 
thank you so much for not only Taking the time to reply so thoroughly but also going that step further offering valuable information and advice that will save me time and possibly extend the lifespan of my equipment. 
 

Thank you Sir! 😊

Bryan 

p.s. I have seen the photos of your 6” F15 and it’s a thing of beauty!

 

[richard ashbee]

how can you tell whether the Etalon is a good one, any checks?

[RodAstro]

Hi 

Are you thinking about the standard scope or are you thinking if it is good enough for a larger scope mod?

[richard ashbee]

On 09/12/2020 at 12:36, RodAstro said:

Hi 

Are you thinking about the standard scope or are you thinking if it is good enough for a larger scope mod?

I am getting the Solar Scout 60mm and thinking of the Asi174mm mono camera, any suggestions? anything else i might need. How are you getting on with the  scout, any problems focusing with a camera? -thanks