20100525 Sun

I've mounted my Ranger upside down today, and it has better balance and the sun arrives my view earlier! A good strategy indeed.



White Light with APM Herschel Wedge, B+W 1.25" ND3, Generic green filter.

H-alpha with Solarmax 40 and BF10.

Both taken with the Ranger and NGF-CM.

1452 (GMT+8):-


1505 (GMT+8):-


1519 (GMT+8):-


Sorry for my dusty CCD.

20100524 Sun

Seeing 3-4/10, transparency 8/10, a rare blue sky!

1524 (GMT+8):-

23 May 2010 Moon with DSLR

Canon 450D in movie mode, Canon 100-400mm at 400mm and Kenko 2x. Seeing 2/10, transparency 7/10.

2251 (GMT+8), 5x crop:


2253 (GMT+8), no crop:


2255 (GMT+8), 5x crop:


Seems like the compression is too much, so the stacked image is kind of soft.

20100521 Sun

Today I setup my gears earlier so as to avoid the sun falling into the shadow of that crane! I found that the sun was partially blocked by the window frame, however, but I can be solved by waiting a few minutes. So the feasible time window is quite short indeed.

The long filament is still around, and there're some really nice prominences. The Autostar still works today, but some ugly characters appear randomly despite they do not affect the functionality of the mount.

1516 (GMT+8), full disc with reducer:-


1519 (GMT+8), closeup with reducer + 2x barlows, I should have removed that reducer first, and this one is not focused accurately:-


1521 (GMT+8), closeup with reducer + 2x barlows, I should have removed that reducer first, and this one is not focused accurately:-

Oops... 20100520 Sun

A picture says it all... the sun is "eclipsed" by a crane from a nearby construction site! In the summer, the sun used to be in a poor location from inside my home, I can workaround this problem by using an offset plate on my LXD55, however, I found that the active construction work around my home is finally invading my indoor imaging site!

1538 (GMT+8):-


I love that long filament...!

There's a good news to me, my Autostar works again... I believe the HBX cable has some problem, maybe some bad contact somewhere.

iOptron SmartStar-G

I was told that it's shipped with tracking number: CP518870465US.

The seller did international priority with insurance and thus, I will probably have to pick it up from Yau Ma Tei central post office. I expect that it will arrive next week, probably at the time during the preparation of my Hebrew final examination.

Anyway, I shall take it after my Hebrew examination day, and then to send the cable modem back to the ISP on the same day. A day of local travelling.

This mount should replace my LXD55, once it arrives and after testing, I shall detach the motors and sell them independently.

This mount should be far more portable than the LXD55, for it requires no counter weight, and it's more compact to take around. It does not have a similar loading capacity, but then I don't need it except with my Orion 100ED.

Therefore, the new use cases analysis of my stuff would be:

1. Indoor solar imaging: Cube mount + Ranger + Solarmax 40/BF10 + Lumenera
2. Outdoor solar imaging: Takahashi TGSP-II + Ranger + Solarmax 40/BF10 + Lumenera
3. Deep sky observation: Unistar Lighter + Orion 100ED
4. Wide field imaging: Takahashi TGSP-II + Canon 450D
5. Outdoor ad hoc observation events: Cube mount + Ranger

Just a record: Lunar Occultation with Venus

went out as planned, just less stuff as the sky was totally white, full of cloud.

Armed with my Canon 450D plus 100-400mm, and a Canon 10x30 IS for my daughters Alby and Almy, we walked for around 15 minutes. And on the way to our destination, we managed to see the Moon with Venus on and off. We even witness the first contact and the second contact... but then no more view afterward.

Due to the unpromising sky condition, I didn't even bring my tripod, so these are the best shot processed to bring out more detail at the expense of noise.





Alby and Almy :-)


Alby managed to use the 10x30 IS by herself without problem, but Almy had a hard time pointing it to the target, anyway, they both enjoy the visual view more. Yes, the Moon and the Venus is big enough and bright enough.

Lunar Occultation with Venus

http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/Museum/Space/StarShine/AstroEvent/LunarOccultationofVenus/e_starshine_ae_ocu_venus.htm

Since my wife will be working and my domestic helper will be off, I will need to take both kids with me. I won't bring too much stuff and I can't go too far. And it's also dinner time. Given all these parameters, I would:

1. Go to a place where it's close to my home, probably here:


檢視較大的地圖

This is where I took my partial eclipsed sunset last time, I can get there within 15 minutes walk.

2. I shall bring my Canon 450D + Kenko 2x + Canon 100-400mm to shoot on a short tripod, it's portable enough to bring with my kids. The Kenko 2x might be or might not be used.

3. I shall bring also my Canon 10x30 IS for some visual observation.

This is my tentative plan... and of course, before all these I will have to cook dinner and to eat earlier with the kids at home!

20100509 Sun

Seeing 2/10, transparency 5/10, cloud moving rapidly around, strong wind blowing occasionally.

Ranger with NGF-CM + reducer, Solarmax 40 with BF10, Meade LXD55 with a long offset plate, Lumenera LU070M with K3CCDTools.

1537 (GMT+8):-


I didn't do this kind of shots recently since the bigger dynamic range of the Lumenera can do it all at once, 1538 (GMT+8):-


Notice that the amount of detail in the first shot is more than the second one, since the shutter speed is faster and therefore, it freezes seeing better. So, I really have little reason to take a longer exposure shot for the prominences.

20100503 Sun

My head is still dizzy but that could not stop me from solar imaging. Today, I pulled out my long offset plate which would only be used during summer when the sun is in a bad position from inside my home. The LXD55 still works flawlessly, except the Autostar shows nothing on the screen... it tracks and it slews around without problem.

Full disc was taken with the reducer, and close-up were obtained by adding a 5x Powermate on top of the reducer, not exactly the best combination but it's just easier to setup. You know, I'm even too lazy to remove the BF10 and unscrew the reducer from its nosepiece... another point is that, the Powermate is close to parfocal, and so by keeping the reducer in place, the amount of re-focusing would be negligible, a quick fix is enough with my NGF-CM.

AR1067 and AR1068 can be seen easily.

1517 (GMT+8):-


1520 (GMT+8):-


1521 (GMT+8):-


1529 (GMT+8):-

20100502 Sun

I'm sick today, but I cannot resist pulling out my telescope for a short observation session. Actually, setting up and tearing down everything means 15 minutes to me, so there's no reason not to do so.



Cloud was moving in and out, but after stacking (averaging), they were all gone. Taken at 1519 (GMT+8).

A few days ago my Autostar has some strange characters coming up on the display, feels like Japanese or so... I realized that it could be software issue and then I tried to upgrade the firmware to see if it can fix the problem... after upgrading, no more display, so I guess it's hardware issue.

Anyway, I can still press a few MODE and then press ENTER to enable tracking. That's enough for me, I don't need GOTO for the sun, I just need tracking and simple slewing and it works.

A dream dual purpose camera

For solar/lunar/planetary imaging, you need a fast frame rate camera with a smaller chip and less pixels.

For deep sky imaging, you need a camera with cooling with a bigger chip and more pixels.

But you don't often see these two coming together, it is because if you want high frame rate, you will need to give up the amount of pixels or else the data rate would be too high so that you will be forced to give up on the frame rate.

To solve this problem, the best thing is to have ROI (Region of Interest) and it is something like the video mode of the Canon 550D, in that mode, you are capturing only the center portion of your CCD under high frame rate. Lumenera did support this by hardware, and the frame rate can actually increase with a smaller ROI. So, this could be a great starting point for such a dual purpose camera. The ROI of DMK is another story, since it's just software cropping, the frame rate would be the same with this kind of cropping.

Since I still have a couple of Lumenera LU070M with me, I might want to add Peltier cooling to one of them? Since it's a board version camera, adding a cooler would be easier and I actually have a Peltier chip with a matching cooling fan around sitting idle. So, the first job is to find a suitable case for it! Let's see what I would have!

20100501 Sun

Sunny holiday! Went out to play with the kids and after lunch, we're home... there's still plenty of sunshine and so I pulled out my solar gear to have a snapshot. there're some activities here and there, nice sun!

1556 (GMT+8):-



Taken with the Lumenera, since my registered K3CCD is ready!

K3CCDTools Registered and DMK for sales

Just received the notification and now I will mainly use my Lumenera LU070M for solar imaging. The DMK 31AF03 still has its unique position since it has higher pixel density and thus, it delivers more spatial resolution in the same setting.

Anyway, my DMK 31AF03 is not going to be used as often as before, just wonder if any one is interested?

I can offer it at $520 USD shipped, so you save over $200 USD for a new one, and as a bonus, I can include a 1394 powered HUBS with a DIY 8AA battery box for free so that you could use the DMK even with 4-pin 1394 port.

20100424 Sun

Seeing 3/10, transparency 4/10. Low solar activity, minor surface detail and lack of any big prominences. Taken with my DMK 31AF03, since the software for my Lumenera is still pending registration.

Full disc with reducer:

1517 (GMT+8):-


1518 (GMT+8):-



Close up with 2x barlows:

1521 (GMT+8):-

Registering K3CCDTools

http://www.pk3.org/Astro/index.htm?k3ccdtools.htm

My internet connection gets more stable now and so I just did the registration online through paypal, but I realized that it took maybe up to two days to get the registration done.

I will have to use my DMK again today, since the K3CCD trial period was expired during the cloudy days.

20100419 Sun

The sun is relatively featureless today, lack of active region, QRF or prominences... My K3CCD was expired during the cloudy days, so I've to use my DMK again, and I shall register my K3CCD soon, but my internet connection is too unstable for me to do this at the time being.

1524 (GMT+8):-


1525 (GMT+8), exposure pushed to show prominences better:-


Just a record.

20100412 Sun

It has been cloudy for very long, my K3CCDTool is about to expire. I tried to see if it works with my DMK, but it seems not. It's on the menu, but the image just won't show up. Anyway, it's probably the best deal to support my Lumenera, and I'm going to register in a couple of days.

Summer is coming and the sun is moving to a location such that I've to mount my telescope via an offset plate, the mount is not perfectly balance in that location but it works since the telescope is light. The sun will keep moving to a worse position until the next Fall.

The Lumenera continue to shine because of its 12-bit capability, the prominence on the right side is fantastically connect to the filament in one single exposure (stacked).

1505 (GMT+8):-

Enough? Enough!

When will we have enough equipment and stop looking for new stuff?

I guess when I have more observation time, I will then have less time to look around for new equipments.

Of course, it's an oversimplified story. With the rapid development of new technology, new equipment is never enough. New CCD, new filter technology, new coating, higher precision mount, etc.

Anyway, if I have more time to observe, the time for "day dreaming" will reduce for sure.

Astromart

I just realized that my account was disabled unless I pay $12, one dollar per month is not unreasonable but...

1. Cloudynights.com is free, and you even get a discount if you buy from astronomics

2. The value of astromart comes from the users, NOT the website itself. No matter how great is the website, if you have no user, it didn't worth a single penny. If we don't pay that $12, their website will then became an empty place. What would be their value by then?

3. To offer something for free at first in order to gather a huge user base and then ask the users to pay, it seems totally unfair at least to the initial user base as they were helping to try out the website, to submit user rating, to make it useful for everybody, etc.

Imagine the government would let you build a house in a land for free but after several years, the government said if you don't pay for the land, you should be kicked away from your house, reasonable?

I'm not going to pay, I really want to see when the number of users drop, how could it go on?

--

After around one month, I've finally to pay the astromart tax on second hand equipments, since it seems there's no better alternative right now.

Now I can only hope that it won't charge me again quickly.

20100328 Sun

Tele Vue Ranger, Solarmax 40 with BF10 for H-alpha, APM Herschel wedge for white light, Lumenera LU070M.

Full disc with reducer:-


White light without reducer:-


Close up taken with a 5x Powermate.


Close up taken with a 5x Powermate.

Animation Sequence on 20100319

Don't know how to align them and make them into animation, the registax trick won't work, so just post them here:

20100322 Sun

The air pollution index breaks a new record today and the transparency is essentially zero, solar imaging is then only thing that we might do, even terrestial imaging becomes something extremely hard in this kind of environment.



Drift and expand method through Registax, I really don't know why it works perfectly sometimes but failed so badly like this one. Again taken with my Lumenera + Solarmax 40 setup.

20100321 Sun

The usual setup with Lumenera LU070M without reducer, drift-and-expand full disc.



With 2x:

20100319 Sun (big prominence again)

Tele Vue Ranger with NGF-CM, Solarmax 40 with BF10, Lumenera LU070M, no focal reducer used. I have used that drift-and-expand technique to capture a full disc shot, except the T-max can be adjusted more carefully, everything work fine.

I've added a light shield to avoid light leakage into my board version Lumenera, it works out great, just 2 minutes of work.


Full disc taken with drift-and-expand method:-


Close up with 5x:-


Close up with 5x:-

Removing the IR filter of the Lumenera LU070M

It's just simple to do that, elegant!





The performance should be better from now on! I shall make a simple enclosure for it asap.

20100318 Sun (AR1054, 1056 and a big prominence)

Tele Vue Ranger with NGF-CM, Solarmax 40 with BF10, Lumenera LU070M. Mosaic of two frames.

1532 (GMT+8), mosaic of two frames:-


1546 (GMT+8):-


1551 (GMT+8), with 2x barlows:-