Excellent White light seeing!!

[Victor Boesen]

I have become a proud owner of a Baader classic 10mm ortho (gifted by my girlfriend) and a Baader solar continuum filter after Christmas. Yesterday and today the weather has been excellent and today I spent a good amount of time outside trying out my new equipment! Today I started out in H-alpha actually where I studied the active regions on the disk. There were some smaller filaments and an active region disappearing on the limb had a lot of activity going on.

Todays location: A field at my grandparent's house where Christmas was held this year This is also where I spent a couple hours last night and where I'm planning to do the same tonight:)

I then switched to white light with my new 10mm ortho and Solar Continuum filter and it quickly became obvious how good the seeing was. I was able to easily focus and granulation snapped into focus among the large active regions on the disk. One thing I've noticed about the solar continuum is that faculae seems brighter and easier to observe under higher magnifications compared to using my OIII. The great seeing immediately struck me as I switched to my Es 82 degree eyepieces to increase magnification, 8.8mm, 6.7mm and then my 4.7mm (152X). As I noticed the seeing still allowed for higher magnification, I reached for my rather old and cheap barlow to use with my 10mm ortho. The view, once again, snapped into focus albeit a little more time was spent reaching perfect focus at this magnification (178.5X). At this magnification the view was still very comfortable and the penumbra of AR2916 looked beautiful. The umbra, while quite dark, showed hints af uneven brightness.

I then tried snapping a couple phone pics with my Oneplus 7 Pro at 4X (3X optical and the rest digital cropping) zoom and I believe I may even have captured the granulation on the surface with my modest 4 inches of aperture, a cheap barlow and my phone camera Let me know if it's just my imagination running wild!

AR2916

AR2918

I'm very happy with my 10mm ortho and I do believe it is sharper than my 82 degree ES eyepieces by a small amount, at least it obviously snaps into focus better than the ES do. I don't feel uncomfortable with the FOV/eye relief and I'll most likely get a Q-turret kit soon to get a wider range of orthos and to get another 10mm for future binoviewers Perhaps the Q-barlow will also be an improvement over my current barlow.

Hope you enjoyed reading!

Victor

Edited December 26, 2021 by Victor Boesen
Added another image

[JeremyS]

Your girlfriend sounds like a keeper, Victor 👍🏻
 

😊

[Mr Spock]

Very nice session. But what's that blue stuff in the sky? 😜

[Victor Boesen]

15 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Your girlfriend sounds like a keeper, Victor 👍🏻

Doesn't she I think she was rather surprised with how happy I was to open a gift with such a small item inside without her knowing what it should even be used for

[Victor Boesen]

Just now, Mr Spock said:

But what's that blue stuff in the sky? 😜

Thank you Michael! I'm not quite sure either but it brought great seeing so I won't complain

[Mr Spock]

1 minute ago, Victor Boesen said:

item inside without her knowing what it should even be used for

The less they know the better 

[Stu]

Another excellent report Victor. You are getting lucky with the seeing at the moment which is great. I haven’t viewed the Sun for ages, and it looks like I will miss this latest crop of ARs unfortunately.

I do think you have caught the granulation in your shots, and some good detail in the ARs 👍👍.

[Victor Boesen]

59 minutes ago, Stu said:

Another excellent report Victor. You are getting lucky with the seeing at the moment which is great. I haven’t viewed the Sun for ages, and it looks like I will miss this latest crop of ARs unfortunately.

I do think you have caught the granulation in your shots, and some good detail in the ARs 👍👍.

Thank you Stu! And yes, I've been quite lucky lately, although we did have a couple weeks without any sunlight as well. Starting from tomorrow weather will change here again so this is probably the last day I get to see the sun unless I get up early tomorrow

[Highburymark]

Nice report. No question the Baader should be sharper than the ES Victor. Minimum glass is usually the way to do on the Sun, even if barlowed. 

[Victor Boesen]

9 minutes ago, Highburymark said:

Nice report. No question the Baader should be sharper than the ES Victor. Minimum glass is usually the way to do on the Sun, even if barlowed. 

Thank you Mark I got my ES eyepieces a while ago when I purchased a 10" dob so they were mostly intended for deep sky and etc. Don't get me wrong, I still very much enjoy the ES eyepieces and will be keeping them for a long time. Might even add a 30mm to my set at some point However, after selling my dob and now owning two APOs, one being of quite good quality, I noticed my observing has changed and now mostly consists of double stars, planetary, lunar, solar and some larger DSOs when at dark skies. The orthos seem to be a nice match for this type of observing.