20061231 White Light in a rush

Very short observation in white light, due to an ad hoc meeting with good friends, and thus the observation has to be made until the sun nearly disappeared. No good work for sure, but not too bad either (it's good enough as long as I can observe!).

1706:-


17:07:-


since is very close to a nearby building, seeing is very bad, and I could not stack more than around 100 frames or else registax will get confused.

20061230 Solar

The sun is dead silent today, zero sunspot in white light, zero active regions and zero bigger filament. A few good prominence is around, probably due to 930 is just around the edge.



Some small filaments and active regions are round on imaging.

Solar observation again (20061226)

Spaceweather shows two sunspots 931 and 932, but my ranger failed to show them up with a 13mm nagler/2x barlows. They could be too small. H-alpha shows two or three active regions in which two of them should be 931/932, but they don't look like sunspot at all.

On careful observation during better transparency, 931/932 did show up, but they're very tiny. Here's a very bad white light shot, at 5x, very poor quality:



Tried to do mosaic again, see if I have any luck this time. Transparency is no good so that even with 2x barlows only, 1/30s with medium gain has to be used for surface detail. I toook only ~300 frames for each clip, to enhance the chance of success. Should find a way to ensure even brightness/contrast, taken during 1502-1514, over 30 frames stitched together:-



1501:-


1515:-


1517:-


1520:-

Solar Mosaic of 24th of Dec

Failed due to cloud, could only get a fraction:-

Silent day solar observation

Again, nothing could be seen in white light.

In H-alpha, no noticeable prominences, did some binoviewing, single eyepiece (TV 20mm vs. WS-III 20mm), binoviewing is the best.

The filament is still there, but it's now farther apart from the solar limb.

1504 (GMT+8)


1505 (GMT+8)


1514 (GMT+8)

White Light/H-alpha Solar 20061223

Good transparency, poor (2-3/10) seeing.

White Light:-

1251 (GMT+8), taken by APM Herschel Wedge:



1258-1259 (GMT+8), SM40/BF10, mosaic:-


1259 (GMT+8), SM40/BF10, mosaic:-


1301 (GMT+8):


1309 (GMT+8):


1317 (GMT+8):

White Light 20061222

Nothing... the sun is blank, absolutely blank.

I tried 20mm with my eyes, nothing except very poor seeing waves...

With 1.5x, nothing, pump up further by using a 2x on top of it, nothing.

Took a short AVI, processed, nothing.

This is my first observation with the new Herschel Wedge, in-travel is barely enough, the polarizer is good enough to use.

Exposure requirement is extremely short, even at 3x, something like 1/1000s or faster, when used without the polarizer.

20061220 M42

The sky has been great for a few days, which is very rare these years! We have consecutive clear skies for so many days such that I begin to think it's more than the clear days added together before within this year.

Tonight the target is simple, M42 with a 150mm Cosmicar f/3.2 lens + 1.5x tele convertor, results pending.

0239:-


0300:-

Solar observation (20061217)

A big active region is here (AR930), the sky is very clear, but the wind is very strong too, making any high resolution photography impossible.

Did H-alpha and white light, didn't do white light for long.

Photographs pending.

H-alpha full disc 1502-1503 (HKT), very poor seeing, even small detail at this image scale got messed up, no hope, just a record:-


H-alpha close up 1506 (HKT):-


1507:-


1512:-


1514:-


Prominence 1515 (HKT):-


White Light 1521 (HKT):-

20061217 M41

Temperature dropping these days, we finally enter winter. Cloud usually go away when it's becoming cold, but we must change the first few days (maybe just first one or two days) before the air stablized and get foggy by air pollutants.

Again, I don't have a chance to go out, got to stay at home.

Sirius is just outside at around 4:30am... of course, the natural target would be M41.... I used the 25mm lens this time, not because I want it, but it happens that I picked it up first. So, I feel 25mm is wide enough and not too low power.

Nothing, couldn't find anything. So I digged out my 10x50, couldn't locate too... star charts verified that I probably looked at the right point.

Then, I set my 75mm lens... scan around, I finally found it! It's pretty small, not much bright star (take a highly light and air polluted city in mind), and thus it's hidden with smaller lens.

Replace it with a 150mm lens, it's certainly M41... adjust exposure and shutter length (reduce gain and increase shutter I mean), here we go... but the polar alignment is found to be way off... carefully adjust it slowly while keeping it partially in the field, slew back... again and again... finally not too far away.

Still not accurate for sure, using this approach. Anyway, I stopped somewhere when I feel my exposure will not be too long, compromise.

This is what I settled for (500 gain, 9.7s... captured 50 frames like this and then adjust to 605 gain to capture some more).

Focus is a bit soft:



15 minutes total exposure.

20061208 Continuation of below

Yes, I woke up, in order to catch M42.

The sky remained clear at first, until 3:20a, cloud moved in and blocked my view.

I used the 8.5mm lens to center my target and then switched to 75mm lens for a closer up. Finally, use the 150mm lens to capture 10 minutes (32s longest), and when I tried to insert that 1.5x, cloud moved it before I can get my AVI completed, however, I'd say 1.5x is needed, since the quadruple just begins to resolve. But I were too late to get any AVI.

Fujinon 70mm f/1.8, DMK31AF03, 32s each, 30 frames stacked:-


0302:-

20061207 Clear Sky

The sky cleared finally, I mean without cloud, but still misty.

It's the best among these days, so I setup my DMK inside my home, and to try out the Cosmicar 150mm f/3.2 as well, of course, urban sky could not support too long exposure, but I managed to get 32.8s without white-out.

No no... 46s is still okay. :-)

Here're the result:-



See how's the result. If the weather can keep up like this after a few hours, maybe I can take M42, M41 those sky of things, but right now, there's nothing special from my home window.

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:-