My double stacked homemade CaK filter continues to impress me pulling out plenty of detail. Despite a very quiet sun there is still a reasonable amount of structure visible on the disk. Looking forward to being able to image again at this wavelength with the 127mm frac!
Images of the Sun, our local star, at a range of wavelengths with specialist solar telescopes. Imaging tutorials, solar bits and pieces for sale, talks and outreach with the Charlie Bates Solar Astronomy Project CBSAP.
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
Ha Full Disk 24th May
After over 2 weeks of not being able to image because of poor weather here in middle England today finally presented a chance! A relatively featureless and quiet disk was complemented by a decent display of proms!
Taken with the DS40 @ f9, DMK31, 6 pane mosaic in IMerge.
I'm getting aperture fever at these wavelengths big time now - might have to start weighing up the options! ;-)
Sunday, 8 May 2011
Ha & CaK Montage 8th May
April showers are arriving late in the UK at the moment - it's May! Despie the unstable airmass and it's unpredictable showers I ventured out this sunday afternoon to get some imaging in.
The Ha shot is taken with the Coronado DS40 etalon @ f9 with a DMK31 camera. Exposure time was 1/77sec.
The CaK shot was taken with my homemade 'Baader-Nado filter', 70mm f11, DMK31 camera @ 1/2000 sec exposure.
Hoping I can get somemore images in as the week goes on!!!
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Ha Full Disk 3rd May
Taken as a 6 pane mosaic with the DS40 tuesdays sun was a pretty affair with lots of disk detail and lots of small hairy proms around the limb. Looks like unsettled weather may be returning for me now, so possibly the last image for a day or 3. Hope you like it!
Sunday, 1 May 2011
3 Disk Montage - 1st May
Despite clear skies here in the West Midlands we are buffeted by gusting and at times quite strong winds. As a result imaging at longer focal lengths with the 127mm scope isn't an option. So for today, the 1st of may, observations were restricted to using the smaller, lighter 70mm refractor. Each of the images that make up this montage was in turn made up from several frames in the form of a mosaic.
Clicking on the image in this blog, and then again on the image in Flickr will let the viewer see this image in it's original full size, which is pretty big and well worth doing!!!
Thursday, 28 April 2011
CaK Full Disk 27th April
Here's another 6 pane mosaic taken with my homemade CaK filter, 70mm frac @ f11 and DMk31 camera. I had a tweak with the alignment of the second interference filter in the setup and this seems to yield slightly more detail than previous images. I like being able to image the sun at these wavelengths with larger aperture than the CaK PST! :)
Monday, 25 April 2011
CaK Full Disk 25th April
I've been away on holiday for a short break over the Easter weekend, however the day before leaving I finally successfully completed the prototype design for a CaK filter. This filter uses 2 sets of interference filters, both centred on 394nm, however these are set slightly offset to each other in a tilt tuned arrangement to tighten the bandpass still further. An energy rejection filter is also incorporated in the optical train, prior to the tilt tuned CaK filters which enables the filter to be used with either my 70mm or 127mm refractor. I haven't got many images so far from this setup, although first impressions are very favourable. Detail levels are high, and seem to have better resolution than commercially available Lunt CaK wedges? Maybe this is a result of a tighter bandpass? The Coronado CaK setups have a 2.2A pass, where as the Lunts have a 2.4A pass.
Transmission levels are very high, and while most definitely not suitable from a safety point of view for visual observation, exposure times are in the region of 1/2000th second at zero gain @ f11 with the DMK31. This has the potential to capitalise on the moments of good seeing, and also the possibility of exploring prominences at CaK wavelengths.
This is going to prove to be a very interesting filter!!!
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