Partial Solar Eclipse 29th March

Cloud meant I missed the very start and very end of the eclipse, but I did get the bit in the middle on the whole, which, is the important bit I guess. It was my first opportunity to test the double stack on my SM60, it was literally setup for the first time 30 minutes before the start of the eclipse. It seems to work well though, and the next step with it will be to see if the double stack etalon benefits from the compression mod, which worked really well with the primary etalon of this setup. 500 frame exposures were taken, with a 3 second gap between, resulting in an animation of over 200 total frames. Setup was the Coronado DS60 at f11 with the ZWO183mm camera.

Trio of Disks 16th March

A trio of disks from Sunday...

Four Full Disks 15th March

4 different scopes in the gaps on a semi sunny saturday!

Sunday Sunshine 9th March

Sundays skies were hazy, very hazy, but with variable transparency which made imaging difficult. The seeing was pretty decent though, and I think I have achieved my best resolution yet with the Coronado SM60. Absolutely love this scope, it has an etalon with good finesse, and after the compression mod is completely even across the disk.

Ha FD Coronado DS40 - 8th March

It's taking quite a bit of work to get a usable image out of this little double stacked Coronado scope, but, I think i'm getting there with it. Experimenting with the order of the etalons, compression and tilt tuning, and a new DERF has resulted in improvements. Possibly still more to go too!

Ha Sunshine with the Coronado SM60 8th March

This is a lovely scope for Ha, both imaging and also visually, high light throughput means a higher magnification can be used, and the 60mm aperture gives a notable improvement in terms of resolution compared to the smaller scopes. A very nice compact and lightweight setup!

G-Band Sunshine 8th March

Taken with the OTA from the Coronado SM60 and the Lunt 1.25" wedge with the 430nm G-Band filter. First go of this as a white light setup to be used as a portable setup. Pleased with the potential of it as a patrol scope!

Saturday Sunshine With The Coronado SM60 22nd February

I bought a Coronado SM60 in immaculate condition just at the end of last year. I did a compression mod on the etalon as it was slightly off band, but now I have one of the best quality etalons I have ever owned - so pleased! First off the full disk taken with a Coranado cemax 2x barlow nosepiece on the snout of the zwo183mm camera. Next up for a bit of a closer look at the regions of interest I swapped in the zwo290mm camera with the 2x cemax barlow in normal mode. I really am pleased with the performance and portability of this scope, it has lots of potential!

Full Disk Sunshine With The Coronado DS40 22nd February

Testing out a new scope to the arsenal, I bought a Coronado SM40 and then double stacked it with another SM40 etalon I had. Kinda pleased with the results, but I know I can get a more constrasty double stack, so there is still some tweaks to do. This was taken prime focus with the zwo183mm camera.

Saturday Sunshine 19th October

Testing out a 'new' travelling rig, the palm sized Sharpstar EDPH50 refactor, a very nice little triplet. This has the benefit of being able to use for a bit of lunar too as we head into autumn. It performs really well on the sun with the little 1.25" Lunt wedge visually, and also for imaging with the Baader continuum filter. Next step is to try the G-Band filter for imaging...