20061202 Solar Observation

Ranger/3x/SM40/BF10, 1441 (HKT), a prominence, black white and colorized version:-



Ranger/3x/SM40/BF10, 1444 (HKT), AR926, black white and colorized version:-



Ranger/SM40/BF10, 1436-1438, full disc solar surface merged with prominences, four shots mosaic, merging:-


Prominence only, same raw from the above one:-


Failed MAP approach, sharper, but the boundary is apparent even with 5 pixels feather:-


Ranger, at around 1.8-2x, 1446 - 1453 - 1457:-

20061126 Solar/Lunar Observation

C5/PST and SM40/Ranger were used. Cloud moving very fast, very disturbing, poor seeing.

Ranger at prime focus, 1553 HKT:-


Ranger with 2x barlows, close up of AR926, 1602 HKT:-


C5/PST, 1530 HKT, processed with MAP:-


C5/PST, HKT 1533, a big prominence, processed with MAP:-


C5/PST, HKT 1539, another prominence, but this one is much dimmer so that I've to use 1/9s exposure at high gain, only 7.5 fps can be used:-


An animation made from four images separated by 4 minutes, click on it to show:-


Lunar observation is conducted at around 6PM HKT after coming back from a nearby playground with my daughters, all by C5 with/without the 2x barlows:-

C5 at prime focus, this one is the first time which I targeted at the wrinkles, to be exact, the Y shape long wrinkle is called Serpentine Ridge, the close by Gassendi like cracter is called Posidonius:-


C5 with 2x barlows, typical thing which I would do is to get close up of attractive craters on the moon, the guys on the stage is Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina:-


This one aims at to capture that two domes, name and whether they're really domes are pending to check:-

Observation logs in IM

H:- I went out on 8th Nov for mercury transit and of course, I failed, since it should be on 9th Nov instead. Anyway, it was quite nice since I could explore a better nearby place for the observation.

Finally on 9th of Nov, I managed to wake up at 07:50!!! Luckily, I could rush out to a nearby place to observe fairly quickly. I only got a very bad baader film (very old one) for my 12x DC, I didn't bring any telescope. Later I found that piece of baader film has light leakage, quite serious indeed and it actually hurt the performance, in particular the contrast a lot.

Anyway, I was blessed to be able to get a few shots with a tiny mercury dot.

(Later I believe it's not mercury but a large sunspot near the solar disc edge)

X:- We booked a car at 30RMB to go for a nearby "big grass field", it was very very dark except the headlight from the nearby highway, but it was enjoyable enough. I didn't regret that I finally pulled out all the mounts, telescopes out from our suitcase since it was so cold there, one couldn't stay there long enough for photography, also the battery which I planned to bring will not live long under this kind of adverse condition, it was well below -10 degree celcius.

My green laser pointer was unable to stand the cool and the battery drained so much that it didn't give a strong enough beam after a few minutes.

The 10x50 was very great. We didn't looked for a lot of targets except those obvious ones like double cluster, andromeda galaxy, pleaides, and those open clusters like M35/36/37/38. Scanning around the winter milkyway was a superb experience... it gave enough impression more than photography, more persistence I mean.

Our local friend failed to stay as long as we did, since she didn't wear enough apparently and she headed back for the car soon. We stayed there for less than an hour, lying on the withered grass land, watching meterior (more than 1 per minute), scanning around.

Totally amazed.

M31 was the most spectacular sight I ever saw about it, it extends all the way to fill up the field of view! That's the first time which I realized that it could be that huge...

20061104 Clear Sky!

Clear sky is must for everything, SM40/BF10/Ranger/DMK



Full disc:



High resolution by C5/PST/DMK:

color:



black white:

20061031

Today, I got 15 minutes only and I tested SM40/PST double stacking configuration.

SM40/Borg 45ED/PST etalon/BF10, double stacking on the cheap:-

16:01 (HKT) Close to full disc


16:02 (HKT)


16:03 (HKT) Full disc by drift method


16:05 (HKT) 2x barlows


16:06 (HKT)

20061029 Solar Observation

This is done by C5/Cheapy-ERF/PST etalon/BF10.

The PST etalon is really very well designed, the afocal lens system does a great job in maintain the incoming cone to become parallel before feeding into the etalon. That maintains the bandwidth very very well, and also produce a very temperature stable system, since light are diverged to become parallel before the focal point, that helps a lot to reduce the heat reaching the etalon, I believe. For the case of a C5, light from 127mm is converged into a 15mm light cone, which is not too hot. If I put my hand at the focal point of the C5 after the Cheapy-ERF, I can feel the intense heat after 10-15s, however, since the bandwidth is well kept, I suppose the heat reaching the etalon should be way less, otherwise, bandwidth will be widen before the etalon breaks for the intense heat.

Enough said, time to show the pictures:


C5 2x Cheapy-ERF:


C5 + Cheapy-ERF at prime focus, this is the first clip processed by Registax V4 with 2 alignment points, no need to convert by VirtualDub any more, save a lot of disk access and disk space:-



Prominence merged with surface detail:-



Prominences from all part of the disc:-

Large aperture observation

I borrowed a PST etalon from my friend and tried some experiments today.

The most exciting one is with a 6.5" ERF, but I only have a C5 on hand... so, my observation is done with 5"!!! This is definitely fun for H-alpha at this aperture!

First one, C5 full aperture at f/10, ~2000 frames stacked:



Close up:



Another close up, more carefully processed:



Prominence:



All of the prominences:

20061022 Solar observation

The sky was pretty good, however, the image quality seems less than favorable, I guess there're still some problems in my OTA, either the tube or the focuser... Got to check out, but anyway, should be able to get some decent results.

Pending.

1418 (HKT) Borg 45ED, 1.5x C mount teleconvertor, DMK 31AF03, SM40/BF10:-


1423 (HKT) Borg 45ED, 1.5x C mount teleconvertor, DMK 31AF03, SM40/BF10:-



1501 (HKT) Borg 45ED, 2x barlows, DMK 31AF03, SM40/BF10:-


Change of AR917 from 1434 to 1457 (HKT):-

Short solar observation and experiment time!

Took a few shots with my Ranger at 2x:



The relatively bigger prominence combined with the surface detail shot:


Another one:

Solar followup

The sky was very bad today, very very large amount of thick cloud, I got this with 1/7s exposure, medium to high gain, after two shots, the sun was totally invisible any more.


1641

1642

20061007 AR913 AR914

Taken at 1301 local time, Borg 45ED, 2x barlows, DMK 31AF03, SM40/BF10:





Full disc, without barlows, merged with prominence frame:



A mosaic:

20061004 Lunar observation

C5, 2x barlows, DMK 31AF03, poor seeing (1/10) and poor transparency (3/10).

Took over 3000 raw frames by exploiting the 30 fps of DMK, stacked over 2000, might be improved by reducing the number of stacked frames, Vallis Schroteii:-



Limb near Calvius:-

Testing of new gear

The sky was pretty bad, it's more like to test of the new gear rather than to observe. My wife was on night shift and I managed to get Alby to sleep quite early, that's why I got a chance.

Tested the Cosmicar 150mm f/3.2, but the image is pretty soft, so I test it with the 1.5x teleconvertor too, so the effective focal length is 225mm at f/4.8.



The second shot is obtained by my C5 having the new dovetail at prime focus: