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24-06-2024 Daystar Quark Chromosphere

Ewan

By Ewan
in Imaging - Solar

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JAC51

JAC51

Posted
Posted

Great pictures and time lapse?

This is what I saw yesterday when I used a h-alpha telescope for first time. A friends quark which he was kindly demonstrating to me.

Stunning, now I’m thinking about how much these things cost.

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The Admiral

The Admiral

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Very 3D, lovely!

Could you give some more details of imaging parameters please? Scope, camera, frames and number stacked etc?

What's the fundamental difference between those images showing the 'fibrous' nature of the surface, and those showing the cellular structure? Is it just the tuning of the Quark?

Thanks,

Ian

Edited by The Admiral
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Rusted

Rusted

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3 hours ago, The Admiral said:

Very 3D, lovely!

Could you give some more details of imaging parameters please? Scope, camera, frames and number stacked etc?

What's the fundamental difference between those images showing the 'fibrous' nature of the surface, and those showing the cellular structure? Is it just the tuning of the Quark?

Thanks,

Ian

The "fibrous" images are H-alpha.

The "cellular" images are white light.

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LukeTheNuke

LukeTheNuke

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On 25/06/2024 at 09:13, JeremyS said:

Simply stunning 👍🏻

I see a lot of negative comments on here about Quark, but you really show how good they can be 👍🏻

The problem for me is more what happens if it goes faulty. What you get back may not be as good. I'm tempted to buy a new one, but I must resist. My one is not that good, and it's developed a fault. The power goes off randomly. My wife's Quark was okay but has deteriorated terribly. I think I recall reading something about that issue over on SolarChat, but I can't find the thread now. It is pretty dire now - unsellable. Our two Quarks would cost over £2K new now. I'd say they're worth close to nothing now. It's a lot of money we can't get anything back on. Whereas my Baader Herschel Wedge has been completely problem free. I might just stick with white light and lunar when my iffy Quark finally packs up. But yes, a Quark that works well is brilliant, and a good price. If my first Quark hadn't gone faulty I'd be a huge fan. It was really good.

I did think about getting a Solar Spectrum or Lunt, but over on SolarChat I see some folks have had issues with faults getting fixed too. What a sorry state the h-alpha game seems to be in. Darn expensive, and getting things fixed to your satisfaction can be a pain. My wife's Quark actually went faulty within the warranty period, but my previous experience was so disheartening that we decided just to leave it.

If you get a Quark and it's like Ewan's (or even just half as good) and it continues to perform like that, then I imagine you'll be delighted with it.

Edited by LukeTheNuke
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Ewan

Ewan

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On 25/06/2024 at 19:20, Highburymark said:

Magnificent images! Seeing must have been exceptional. Thanks for posting.

Thanks but here in the UK seeing is never that great, fast 174 + SSD & a lot of captures gives a better chance of at least a couple of decent shots i guess

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Ewan

Ewan

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3 hours ago, LukeTheNuke said:

Wow, Ewan, amazing shots and processing! The prom steals the show, but that's some amazeballs granulation in the white light shots. What a joy to see!

Luke...it's been a while fella, years in fact, how have you been ?

You are one of the few imagers that swayed me over from Deep Sky to Solar buddy, that & lack of sleep :-), i do indeed remember the issues you had with your unit & some other folks all too well.

Had mine coming on 10 years now, i had to swap out the ITF once which i bought from Andover Filters myself but apart from that it seems to be working ok still, one thing i did notice though, i used to use -2 setting on the 'tuner' dial but after removing some slop in the focuser i am now on -4/5. I also usually use a 50mm spacer & no diagonal as i like a straight through connection, i wanted to get more of a screwed connection so decided to use my Altair Field Flattener which knocked 35mm off the travel, flattener is fine & is all i had connection wise 😉 .

I was very lucky with that 'erupting prom', i literally setup, scanned the disc & it was already going, the real time speed of the event meant you couldn't use a usual 6Ms exp as you wouldn't grab enough frames but go too fast ie 2Ms you will bump the Gain right up, it's a compromise in the end but happy with the outcome.

I will have to make more effort to pop back here fella but you know how it is with media, life & hobbies...lack of time.

Take it easy buddy 

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Ewan

Ewan

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19 hours ago, The Admiral said:

Very 3D, lovely!

Could you give some more details of imaging parameters please? Scope, camera, frames and number stacked etc?

What's the fundamental difference between those images showing the 'fibrous' nature of the surface, and those showing the cellular structure? Is it just the tuning of the Quark?

Thanks,

Ian

Hi Ian, my setup is :-

152mm Tecnosky Refractor F5.9
SCT C8 203mm + 3X Barlow
AZEQ6-GT Mount
Baader 135mm D-ERF
Daystar Quark Chromosphere @F30 
Daystar Interference Eliminator
Baader 3.8Nd solar film / Green filter/ IR/UV filter (WL only)
Point Grey IMX174 5.6um
Genika Astro, AS!3, ImPPG

Parameters always vary depending on seeing & setup used but as a standard i will use 6Ms Exp & a Gain setting for a MAX white point readout of around 200, Gamma 1.0.

I normally do a capture for 30 seconds only, if seeing is slightly worse i go as low as 2Ms & use RAW mode which disables the Gamma setting but enables MAX FPS, this will allow 9000+ frames to be captured. I tend to stack between 5% - 15% of images in Ha but only 1% - 3% in White Light, hope this helps

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