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:-

Comparing apple with orange: Lumenera vs. DMK

First of all, it's an unfair comparison and the sky was too bad to do the comparison nicely. Seeing could be quiet good but it's hard to estimate due to the extremely poor transparency, I would say it's 1/10 at best.

The apple is a Lumenera LU070M and the orange is a DMK 31AF03, the target was the sun and it is mounted on the same scope and same filter set. Here're the results:

20100315 1421 (GMT+8), captured with the DMK:-


20100315 1413 (GMT+8), captured with the Lumenera:-


The DMK has more pixel and the amount of detail is higher for sure, however, the bigger pixel (more well depth) and the higher dynamic range (12-bit) render better contrast as expected. I can see the prominence along with the surface detail while capturing with the Lumenera, no stretching is required during image processing.

The DMK has lower frame rate (30fps) and thus the Lumenera (60fps) managed to get enough frame faster.

Depends on what you want, if you just want a quick full disc shot, the DMK has an edge here since it gives more resolution, but for anything else, the Lumenera seems better. Having said that, the difference is not huge.

Later, I realized that there's some light leakage, mainly due to the fact that it's not an enclosed model, see the following for some ideas:



So I put a small paper board in front of it and take another shot:



AR1052, 2x barlows, Lumenera LU070M.

A very nice camera indeed, well worth the price!

Camera and lenses

The weather is very bad in Hong Kong, together with the air pollution, even that I've been trying to do solar astronomy, the time for astronomy has remain relatively low.

Therefore, I've started to switch some of my hobby money to photography, I still got a few prime lenses so that they could be used for astrophotography as well.



I wonder when can I test my Lumenera...

Lumenera Camera for Sales

The cameras have arrived, they're definitely great cameras for H-alpha solar imaging. Drivers can be downloaded (free) from the Lumenera website together with a simple software for image capturing. I found AMCap and Philips VRecord works as well.

It comes with a standard USB 2.0 interface, however, you will need to supply your own USB cable. A simple C-mount lens is included as well, and on removing that lens, it can be attached to a 1.25" focuser without any adapter, a very nice feature indeed!


The model is LU070M which is the board version of LU075M, and the M suffix means monochromatic. It features a 1/3" CCD with 640x480, up to 60 fps at full resolution, even higher is available in binning mode.


See the Lumenera logo on the PCB:

$400 USD shipped to most international destination, contact me. Do a google search on LU075M, and you shall see this is a great bargain indeed! I've several of them on hand, contact me if you have any question.

Ordered a new camera

It has been cloudy for very long, and there's not much chance that I can have any observation at the time being.

My Vaio U3 is too slow to use with my DMK 31AF03, I can get less than 10 fps with it. My new Eee should be much faster but it has no FireWire port, so I've been looking for good deal on USB based monochromatic camera.

I just found a great candidate and it is a Lumenera LU070M which features a 1/3" chip like the DMK 31AF03 but it has less pixels. However, given the size of the CCD, I can still cover the whole solar disc in one shot, and given the bigger pixel, it should deliver even cleaner image with shorter exposure. Since it is only 640x480, the data rate should be low enough for my Eee, so I believe that 30 fps is no problem, and maybe even higher is possible. Again, since the Eee has a screen less than 1024x768, so the DMK won't work in full screen mode without real time resizing, and therefore, the lesser resolution of the LU070M could be a better match.

Once it arrived, I shall test it against the DMK. If it works well, maybe I shall sell my DMK or I shall keep my DMK for use with my desktop PC? It has higher resolution and thus, it's meaningful to keep it in some sense.

What I got is a second hand deal, and it contains more than one camera in the deal, and it's a good bargain for me. Maybe I shall also sell the rest locally?

The LU070M is the board version of the famous LU075M, the only difference is the external case. Board version is better in the sense that you can do cooling easier, or you can do whatever modification easily. And if you want a case, you can always DIY one with some simple plastic box of suitable size, the of course, it's also cheaper.

20100201 Sun (AR1043)

Seeing 3/10, transparency 2/10 (the sky is white), AR1043 is around but it's small.

1549 (GMT+8):-


1550 (GMT+8):-


Just a record.

20100116 White Light Sunspot

Continue to monitor that sunspot (AR1040 in white light), using my Orion 100ED f/9, seeing still very bad at 2/10, transparency at 4/10.

1456 (GMT+8), at 900mm:-


1504 (GMT+8), at 4500mm, resized to hide the ugly seeing:-

20100115 Partial Solar Eclipse

First contact in white light, EXIF reveals 1533 (GMT+8):



First contact in H-alpha:



Start time of the clip = 15:32:42 (GMT+8), synchronized with HKO, 30 fps

Cutting AR1040 in H-alpha:



Start time of the clip = 16:03:19 (GMT+8), synchronized with HKO, 3.75 fps

20100114 White Light Sun

Before the sunspot goes away, I catch the chance to capture it. I setup my Orion 100ED f/9 on my LXD55, using my APM Herschel wedge as the filter, plus a a combination of ND3/polarizer/green filters... Prime focus, 3x and 5x are used to pump up the image scale.

The seeing is poor, and registax has a hard time to do the processing, since every frames are different, I cannot even determine which one should be used as the reference for the alignment process.... I would rate it a 3/10, transparency quite good at 5/10.

One of the video taken with my 5x Powermate:



Another one:



Processed shots, no good indeed...

1534 (GMT+8), 900mm:-


1540 (GMT+8). 4500mm:-


1551 (GMT+8), 2700mm:-

My partial solar eclipse observation plan

I will try to do the following:

1. Observation at home: I shall setup my H-alpha as well as white light from inside my home.

H-alpha would be using my Ranger with NGF-CM, together with my Coronado Solarmax 40 with BF10, image capturing by my DMK 31AF03.AS with a reducer in order to see the full solar disc. I shall focus on the prominence by pushing up the exposure. I wish to see some prominences cut by the lunar disc but that would require luck. And it would be interesting to have the lunar disc to occult any active regions. To have both goals reached, I have to adjust the exposure slightly more than what surface detail would require.

Along side with it, I will have my Canon 450D, Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L with Kenko 2x, together with my Thousand Oaks Type 2+ Glass filter. This setup will take snapshots automatically with a timer control, I will be capturing a shot every 10 seconds using spot metering.

After around 5:00pm, I shall go outside with my white light setup on a simple camera tripod.

2. Observation outside: I shall choose a location which I can see the sun closer to the horizon, I wish that I can capture some shots without solar filter when the sun is low enough. Yes, it's pretty dangerous, but the rule of thumb is "eyes off" from the view finder.

Consider a red eclisped sunset, with some more terrestial scene, it should be something very nice indeed. As a result, I shall also bright a wider lens along with me for that purpose.

(I shall be in Nam Cheong Playground where I should be able to see the sun setting... and I expect that even there're places that I can see even lower, there would be a high chance of cloud at that angle given Hong Kong weather)

20100113 Sun

Seeing very poor, the solar disc is not round at all, accurate focusing is impossible, I would rather it a solid 0.5/10. Transparency 3/10 since the sun is rather low in the sky already.

Full disc with reducer:-

1633 (GMT+8):-


1634 (GMT+8):-


Close up with 2x barlows:-

1638 (GMT+8):-


1640 (GMT+8):-

20100112 Sun in white light

My toy room was occupied by my daughters, they were having their piano lesson when I back home. Therefore, I can only take a snapshot with my DSLR.

Taken with my Canon 450D, Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 with IS turned on, handheld, Thousand Oaks Glass Type 2+.

1624 (GMT+8), autofocus at f/5.6:-


With Kenko 2x, 1627 (GMT+8), Live View contrast detection autofocus at f/11:-


Click for full size.

20100109 Sun with AR1040

Cloud cleared up eventually while the sun was still around, great for me! Seeing very poor at 3/10, transparency 5/10. Full disc taken with reducer, close up with 2x.

1559 (GMT+8):-


1600 (GMT+8):-


1602 (GMT+8):-


1603 (GMT+8):-