Nice Prom - 6th April

Ha Nice prom lrg, originally uploaded by Mark Townley.

I've been neglecting my Ha shots of late with my new whitelight filters. Managed to get this nice shot of a prom - looked great in the eyepeice!

I did take somemore avis however seems I knocked the scope out of focus, and so the rest were useless. Doh!

AR1183 @ 706nm

AR1183 127mm f17, originally uploaded by Mark Townley.

Really happy with this image. If you look at the image of the sky below this post you will see what I was up against - very poor transparency with seeing conditions not much better! This was my first opportunity to try out the 706nm TiO filter with my 5" frac. Despite having to crank up the gain and exposure on the DMK31 to compensate for conditions I was really surprised with the results.

Looking closely at the image there is lots of detail visible in the umbra and penumbra of the spots, and the mottling of granulation. I'm really optimistic that with a properly clear sky i'll be able to get even better results still.

This image is testimony that this filter which works at longer wavelengths is better than the Baader Solar Continuum filter when seeing conditions are poor. On (rare) days when seeing is good the Baader Continuum as operates at a shorter wavelength should deliver a slightly higher resolution image. Until those rare days of good seeing actually materialise here in the West Midlands i'm going to stick with the 706nm TiO as far as i'm concerned this delivers the goods!

Hazy Skies on Saturday

Todays-Poor-Sky, originally uploaded by Mark Townley.

A quick pic of the hazy skies from saturday. Amazingly the 706nm TiO filter cut through these condition very well!

Saturdays Solar Setup

scope, originally uploaded by Mark Townley.

Thought I would post a picture of the setup i've been using of late for my solar work. On the EQ6 Pro mounted side saddle on Geoptik hardware is my 5" Meade refractor. This has been 'modded' with a Moonlite focuser, extra large dew shield and Harvington Strut. It is used with the Lunt Solar Wedge and variety of filters for whitelite imaging. Mounted next to it is my Ha setup. The is a 70mm f6 frac, and can be seen in the picture to have double stacked Coronado 40mm etalons mounted to it. The Coronado 'Solfinder' finder scope is mounted to it by means of a laser pen bracket. The smaller scope can also be used for whitelight when seeing conditions are poorer or if I want to get full disk whitelight images

In terms of developments of this setup, the plan is to fit an extra set of mounting rings to the Meade frac complete with a Losmandy mounting plate clamp, this will primarily be to mount the CaK PST on here also, however will also allow me to put my Meade ETX90 on there aswell.

TiO Near Full Disk - The Filter That Tames Seeing!

TiO Full Disk lrg, originally uploaded by Mark Townley.

Living here in the West Midlands our skies are criss-crossed by the flight paths of planes. All trans-Atlantic flights to and from London Heathrow all pass overhead in a NS / SN direction, and Birmingham International Airport is not too many miles to the east of me, so that part of the sky is riddled with planes there. This has the effect of destroying the 'seeing' conditions making solar imaging boil away.

I have tried a Baader Solar Continuum filter, and on days of good and better seeing this is an excellent object optically. However more times than most the seeing just blurs the sun, even with this narrowband filter.

Here the 706nm 'TiO' filter really comes into its own. Longer wavelength light is much less affected my the turbulent skies of bad seeing and this is really evidenced in this series of pictures.

On the laptop screen the spots, faculae and granulation really locked on instantly, and didn't bounce around as with the shorter wavelengths. The detail was immense!

This near full disk shot was taken with the 70mm frac @ f6 and DMK31 camera.


Oh, this filter and it's holder including shipping was less than £20 - a true bargain!

AR1183 TiO Wavelengths

ar1183-TiO-70mm-f11 lrg, originally uploaded by Mark Townley.

A closeup of this new active region with the 70mm frac @ f11. The shot is oozing with detail in the spots, granualtion and faculae.

AR1176 in TiO Wavelength

AR1176-TiO-70mm-f11 lrg, originally uploaded by Mark Townley.

A closeup of AR1176 using 70mm frac @ f11. The image is a bit harsh in its tone, however this is caused by the reasonably thick layer of haze. The 706nm filter cut right through this as if it wasn't there though, and apart from the left and right ends of the histogram on the capture software being dragged right in, reducing the dyanamic range somewhat, i'm quite happy with how this turned out! Really looking forward to 'proper' clear skies to be able to fully evaluate this filter!