I tried another configuration with the Lunt 50 etalon I recently bought, and that is triple stacking it with my existing double stacked SM40 etalons. The weather was supposed to be good on saturday, but rapidly thickening cloud meant I had very little time for observing and imaging. I tentatively looked through the eyepiece visually to see whether it would work, tuning the etalons the view was immediately apparent that there was a lot of detail and contrast. I just about managed to get the image above running on maximum exposure and very high gain before the cloud was too thick. I really excited to see how this setup performs in good sky conditions...
A new year, a new solar image and a new scope mod. I tried a Lunt 50C double stack filter in place of my usual SM40 etalon that is used to double stack the basic SM40 scope. I was quite pleased with the result, seemingly giving a result that is centred closer to 656.28nm than my usual setup which seems slightly offset. Given the boiling seeing with todays low sun I was quite pleased with the results.
The seeing was boiling, the sun was low in the sky, but it was my first CaK full disk of the year, and now the sun just keeps getting higher with each passing day! Taken with the 40mm scope at 700mm focal length with the PGR Blackfly IMX249 GigE camera and the homebrew CaK filter.
I woke this morning in the wake of 'Storm Frank' to a suckers gap - that band of clear blue skies that follows the passage of a cold front before the unstable air triggers off bands of showers. It wasn't much of gap, but it was enough for me to capture this full disk of our star taken in Hydrogen Alpha light taken with the Coronado DS40 at 700mm focal length with the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera. For such a low altitude sun the conditions were really stable and I was pleased with the result, especially as this is my last shot of the sun for 2015. Happy New Year everyone, I hope it is a good year for you with clear skies!
I took quite a lot of images with the 60mm scope at 1900mm focal length, but, with the poor seeing most were useless, apart from this one! Which, while far from perfect is quite easily the best of a bad bunch. Taken with the PGR Blackfly IMX249 GigE camera and the homebrew CaK Filter.
The sun was looking nice down at the blue end of the spectrum, and this full disk taken with the 40mm scope at 700mm focal length was good in riding above the poor seeing that was prevailing with the low near solstice winter sun. Taken with the homebrew CaK filter and the PGR Blackfly IMX249 GigE camera.
The sun is surprisingly busy still, with a decent amount of large active regions and their sunspots. The seeing wasn't great when I took this image with the sun still very low in the sky only a day after the solstice, still, it is over a month since I was last able to image our star. Taken with the Coronado DS40 at 700mm focal length with the PGR Blackfly GigE IMX249 camera.
