Don't normally do the prom shots, but had a go yesterday on this one that was on the northern limb and was really surprised at how delicate it come out. Taken with a 70mm f6 refractor, DMK31 camera, 0.5x focal reducer and a Daystar Quark Chromosphere.
This new active region really is a monster, and contains a main spot that is many times larger than Earth itself. It threw off an X-class flare in the early hours of the morning, and hopefully as it rotates to become geoeffective it will throw some more plasma our way and give us some nice displays of the aurora. This shot was taken with the 40mm scope at 700mm focal length with the DMK31 camera and the homebrew CaK filter.
A quiet couple of active regions here make for a pretty slice of the suns equatorial region, taken with the 40mm scope at 700mm focal length with the DMK31 camera.
The filaments and proms were just about visible on todays CaK full disk. The new active region is huge and easily visible with the naked eye with proper filtration. Taken with the 40mm scope at 560mm focal length with the DMK31 camera and homebrew CaK filter.
There was lots to see on todays full disk, a lovely filaprom and ofcourse monster spot ar12192. The image was taken with the DS40 at 560mm focal length with the DMK31 camera. There was low pressure today and the temperature quite cool, as a result needed more tilt to get on band which resulted in a bit of banding. However after so long without the sun this is most definitely better than nothing!
New active region AR12192 has rounded the suns limb cracking with X class flares, fortunately I was able to get the first sun in weeks and get an image of this monster using the Quark Chromosphere, 70mm f6 refractor, DMK31 camera and 0.5x focal reducer.
I was surprised to see the skies clear on tuesday afternoon so decided to try and get some solar shots. Despite a deep blue sky after weather fronts had come through the seeing was terrible, and even with the 40mm at CaK wavelengths the limb of the sun was showing a continually changing saw tooth pattern in the unsteady atmosphere and low sun. So, needed to back off the focal length a bit here to 560mm to somewhat compensate for this. I'm pretty pleased with the results as at this time of year some sun is better than no sun! Taken with the 40mm scope at 560mm focal length with the homebrew CaK filter and the DMK31 camera.
When properly tuned there are no hot spotting or sweet spotting issues with the double stacked Quark as this 2 pane mosaic shows. The double limb feature is now gone ad filaments take on a real 3D appearance as they near the limb. I wish I could have taken this photo about 6 hours early as it would really maximise the effect. Taken with the 70mm at f6 with a 0.5x reducer and a DMK31 camera.
The Quark is very good on it's own, but adding a second etalon really makes things interesting; the double limb feature as a result of photospheric leakage is gone, and the disk including filaments shows much better contrast - not that the quark in isolation is not good already. Taken with the 70mm scope at f6 with a 0.5x focal reducer and a DMK31 camera.
Since owning the quark I seem to have somewhat neglected CaK imaging, so on saturday afternoon I decided to get a full disk of our star in the near ultra violet with the 40mm scope at 700mm focal length with the DMK31. The proms are just about visible in this image, and when compared side by side with the Ha from the same time it is just about possible to make out the filaments. Sadly autumn seems to have arrived here in the UK, so not sure when the next time I will be able to image. I still have some images from this session to process, so should hopefully get them up later.
I'm finally happy with the tuning of the Daystar Quark Chromosphere when used with my 70mm f6 refractor, so today I decided to try a full disk mosaic to see if banding issues were going to be a problem - looking at the image it can be see they are not! This is a 24 pane image. I really am happy with the purchase of this Quark, it certainly is a versatile piece of kit! I much prefer the result with the 70mm f6 than the 100mm f10, just too much magnification with the larger scope, I think I will have to keep my eye out for a 100mm f7 scope and possible a 152mm f6 scope for next year for high res closeups.
