Friday, February 24, 2012

Getting the hang of this. Composites from today MCH/Tucsen/lunt combo

Really digging these. I wanted to try my hand at doing composites, so I captured accordingly. Exposing one avi for prominence detail, then doing another clip with exposure turned down for disk detail. Both cams performed admirably, with the Tucsen being a bit of a pain to get right. That being said, I love the results. A lot.










I am very happy with these images. I love my Lunt solar scope

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Much better images today with mallincam and tucsen

Mallincam clarity is amazing. These were taken between 1700-2130utc and are mostly done with the mallincam. I did sprinkle in a few from the tucsen, as I can't image the whole disk with the mallincam right now. I need a focal reducer. Mallincam images are processed monochrome in registax, with ps adjustments for deinterlacing, levels, sharpness, and false color. The tucsen images were taken red channel only, processed monochrome, stacked/aligned in registax and ps for above mentioned adjustments. Only three images were full color shots with the webcam.

Active region 11422 is easy to spot, it looks like the magnetic fields of a bar magnet. It just produced a c-class flare about an hour prior to this writing. Enjoy!















And, finally....









Thursday, February 16, 2012

Final for this processing run. I really like this one.

Processed as monochrome in PS. Curves, levels, midtones, etc.. in photoshop, false color added. Much more detail present, I like the contrast as well.

Hydrogen alpha and the tucsen imager

Not bad. Taken today between 1930-2030z. Wish contrast was better, but will try the mallincam tomorrow and see if it is better for darkening the filaments. I am very pleased though, this almost approximates the detail visible at high power in the eyepiece..









Wednesday, February 15, 2012

First light, finally...

I had planned on doing an unboxing video, but there really was not very much to it. Open the box and the case is there, inside the case is the scope, pretty much ready to rock. No assembly or anything, just had to put the dovetail rail on and attach to mount. It would have been pretty boring.

So I have been fighting the clouds for the past several days since receiving the scope. Today I finally got a short break from the cloudcover which afforded me almost an hour of good solar observing.

First off let me say how really impressed I am with the Lunt 60tha. It is a great scope in all aspects, a solid instrument. After getting to use it today, seeing the sun in h-alpha light can only be described as a surreal event. Looking through the eyepiece, it was easily the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in a telescope. There were many prominences visible, including one that a poster on cloudy nights described as looking like a spider standing on the sun. Actually getting to see it, well that was breathtaking. I did manage to take some photos afocally with my iphone. Believe me, these photos look nowhere near as good as the visual view through the eyepiece. My task now is to find an imaging system that will allow me to match or exceed what the view looks like to the eyeball.

enjoy these pics, they will get better as my skills and imaging budget improve!





Sunday, February 12, 2012

Couple of updates...

First off, let me again sing praises to the customer service that Astronomics provides. I was sold the wrong dovetail mounting plate by accident on thursday. Due to circumstances beyond my control I was barely able to make it back on friday before closing time (2 minutes before). They were very kind and stayed late to located the proper dovetail plate for my mount. Super group of people.

With the above mentioned dovetail mount, I anxiously look forward to receiving my H-alpha scope tomorrow. I checked UPS and it is sitting in OKC. I hope it gets delivered tomorrow as we are slated for a winter storm this evening tonight. I can't wait to bolt up the scope to the dovetail bracket and mount it on the nexstar 8 mount. I understandably want to do some imaging with it, but for the first couple of days I plan on visual observing only to get a feel for the scope and it's capabilities. BTW, here is the exact scope in the exact configuration that I ordered...


On another note, I joined the OKC Astronomy Club this last friday. Not sure what to think about it yet, there were some very nice folks there, but it was an ecclectic bunch. There seemed to be an emphasis on beginners at the meeting the other night. I have no problem with that, and I am pretty danged far from knowing what I am doing, but I am just hoping to sortof fall in with the more seasoned bunch so I can start learning from their experience. I also can't wait until their next observing session, to see what the Cheddar Ranch Observatory is all about and to see what dark skies hold for my scope. Another thing I am looking forward to is getting the opportunity to visually look through some large dobsonian scopes to see how big of an aperture I would have to go with to visually hang with the performance of my 8SCT/Mallincam setup. I would be more of a visual observer if I could match that level of performance. I fear though, the gap may be too wide. Another thing I am hoping to do is attend outreach sessions with my Lunt 60 and participate there as well.

If my lunt comes in tomorrow, you can bet that you will see an unboxing video in the next several days. Stay tuned.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Found the last Lunt 60 basic package available anywhere in the damn country

As luck would have it, my single-stacked Lunt 60mm h-alpha scope (b600) is on it's way and should be here on monday. I thought that last night I would check all listed dealers one last time in hopes that I could find a lunt 60. Same old story except for the OPT website. I noticed that they had changed the status flag of a bunch of lunt scopes to "in stock". Excited, I knew I had to wait until noon today before they opened and I could place my order. I also called Astronomics, being the loyal customer, in hopes that they had been resupplied as well. They said that they talked to Rikki at Lunt yesterday and was quoted the same 5 week lead time that I got yesterday. Too bad, I like to give Astronomics my business, but I had to go with OPT.

I called OPT to confirm that they did indeed have the scope package in stock. The rep put me on hold to check and came back several minutes later to advised that I was getting the last one! I am so lucky not to have to wait over a month to get mine. I should have it next week, monday specifically. I went ahead and ordered the Sol Searcher solar finder by TeleVue as well. I will pick up a vixen dovetail in the next day or so from astronomics. I plan on using my NexStar 8 mount. The payload capacity of the mount is 12 pounds, so it won't even blink an eye at the Lunt.

I still think Lunt, as a company, needs to take measures to meet the demand. This has always been a problem that they have had. I am a person of limited financial means, and waiting on the cash to purchase generally does not make me want to wait an additional 5 weeks for delivery. Astronomics rep advised that Coronado has really ramped up production in anticipation of the partial eclipse, the venus transit, and the solar maximum event in general. He predicted Coronado to easily outsell the Lunt's because of their ability to crank out scopes. I just count myself lucky to locate the scope I wanted from Lunt in stock at a dealer. Otherwise it was going to be Coronado with the sub-par focuser.