Clear skies, plenty of time and poor seeing meant I decided to do a comparison between the suns disk taken with my Lunt 50 etalon, 2x cemax barlow and 60mm f6 scope, and the disk taken with the same setup replacing the cemax barlow for a Daystar Quark. While the single stack view can offer some nice views of the prominences for all round contrast and visibility of detail the double stack setup wins hands down.
Poor seeing made for it's own challenges today, so imaging the CaK full disk I decided to scale the aperture back to 60mm, and also to image at a smaller scale so I was undersampling with the camera. Given the outcome i'm quite pleased with it.
Another quiet day on the sun again, however the seeing was even worse than yesterday, and I though yesterday was bad. So, adopted the line of taking more image runs, with more images in each run, with lucky imaging there is always a best image. The disk was taken with the usual travelling kit, the Lunt 50 etalon double stacked with the Daystar Quark.
There were a large number of bright points around the solar equator indicative of cycle 24 activity. The seeing wasn't great, but shooting lots of exposures yields a best image. Taken with the 100mm Tal stopped down to 80mm, the 2,5x barlow and the IMX174 chipped camera.
It's been a while since I did any CaK imaging, but clear blue skies certainly helped, so, I decided to use the 100mm Tal refractor stopped down to 80mm to give me a focal ratio of f12.5. The small region of activity in the centre of the disk seems to have sported a pair of pores on and off througout the day.
Following on from the full disk shot I decided to get a closer look at the brighter points that sat around the solar equator today. Taken with the SM90, 2.5x barlow and the IMX174 chipped camera.
Some weekend sunshine for a pleasant change! The sun appears to be blank but when viewed full size there are plenty of small scale features. Taken with the Lunt50 etalon on the 60mm f6 scope double stacked with a Daystar Quark.
