*
Friday 18th: 10.30am. Clear sky with bright sunshine 31.5F outside, 32.9F inside dome. Nothing visible on the disk in white light. 180mm f/12 R35, Solar Continuum green filter. 32mm EP.
Struggling at first in H-alpha. The binoviewer has steamed up. As has the 6" objective inside center. Leading to misty views. A "tree"prominence at 1.30 [inverted.] Has become more complex since I first saw it. Three "tree trunks" now. I'm getting a much sharper view than Cerro Tololo! That sounds boastful or even ridiculous. But, my view of the biggest prominence showed lots of structure which was completely absent on the Gong image. That said, it wasn't a good day for surface detail through my own telescope.
These images show the intensely hot, refocused reflection from the internal D-ERF in front of the dewshield. The smoke from the target was instant and the beam burnt through the
rubber in under a second! Is there any starker warning against taking
short cuts or penny pinching with solar observing? Knowledge is safety.
Take no chances out of ignorance!
The 6" objective looks filthy but is a common sight for optics under intense lighting. Flash photography will usually make a lens or mirror look very similar. The rings seen through the glass are the telescope's baffles.
Perhaps I need a hair drier to gently warm my cold, misted optics? If I take the optics indoors they will only steam up when they go into the warmth.
Surface detail coming out now. I tried the 20mm in the binov. but they steamed up from the moisture of my eyes. Have put them in an inside pocket to warm up.
The optics finally cleared by 11am. Another prom. on the opposite side of the
disk at 8.0 inv.. 26mm EPs. Since vanished. New 'leaning' smokey prom seen at 3.00 on the disk inverted in the binov. 20mms EPs will throw double images sometimes.
12.20 pm. Now 34.2F out. 38F in. Airliner crossed the sun at 12.28pm. Inverted! "Please fasten your seat belts and remain seated." ;-)
Sun reached only 13° altitude by 12.47pm. Tried a meridian flip! Mechanically it worked okay but did not quite center the sun perfectly. This was probably because I had not synced for several hours and had done some gentle nudging in between as I looked around the sun's disk. The typical etalon "sweet spot" is ring shaped. Features and prominences pop out and vanish completely as I move the field of view around the object.
There is also no guarantee the mounting is properly aligned. I have only used an inclinometer and a compass so far. Since I am not hoping to capture images of the nights sky I am not presently asking much of the mounting drives and alignment. It will be an interesting exercise to align the mounting properly. Before that I need to make fine adjusters for the worms.
I have had to re-direct the paddle cable though the north side of the pier. It was originally going through the west side and the meridian flip risked stretching the cable. I decided to hook the paddle over the north side of the pier instead of from the OTA itself. On the pier it remains easily within reached and always accessible for objects in the southern E-W arc. Nor will the cable need to move with the telescope.
15.00 35.4F ext. 40F internal. Several proms. Still trying to capture afocal snaps of the prominences. A second, smaller plane passed across the sun. By sheer luck I caught another plane without trying or even seeing it! Three planes in one day! I have inverted my afocal snap to avoid passenger vertigo.
Later I went out to have a look at the gibbous Moon which was high in the east. Rather bright and lacking in contrast, with thin high cloud, as I pushed the power up beyond 200x. So I tidied everything away and closed up for the night.
Saturday: Afternoon viewing of the sun through thick mist. NO features visible but another plane crossed the disk.
These images show the intensely hot, refocused reflection from the internal D-ERF in front of the dewshield. The smoke from the target was instant and the beam burnt through the
rubber in under a second! Is there any starker warning against taking
short cuts or penny pinching with solar observing? Knowledge is safety.
Take no chances out of ignorance! The 6" objective looks filthy but is a common sight for optics under intense lighting. Flash photography will usually make a lens or mirror look very similar. The rings seen through the glass are the telescope's baffles.
Perhaps I need a hair drier to gently warm my cold, misted optics? If I take the optics indoors they will only steam up when they go into the warmth.
Surface detail coming out now. I tried the 20mm in the binov. but they steamed up from the moisture of my eyes. Have put them in an inside pocket to warm up.
The optics finally cleared by 11am. Another prom. on the opposite side of the
disk at 8.0 inv.. 26mm EPs. Since vanished. New 'leaning' smokey prom seen at 3.00 on the disk inverted in the binov. 20mms EPs will throw double images sometimes.12.20 pm. Now 34.2F out. 38F in. Airliner crossed the sun at 12.28pm. Inverted! "Please fasten your seat belts and remain seated." ;-)
Sun reached only 13° altitude by 12.47pm. Tried a meridian flip! Mechanically it worked okay but did not quite center the sun perfectly. This was probably because I had not synced for several hours and had done some gentle nudging in between as I looked around the sun's disk. The typical etalon "sweet spot" is ring shaped. Features and prominences pop out and vanish completely as I move the field of view around the object.
There is also no guarantee the mounting is properly aligned. I have only used an inclinometer and a compass so far. Since I am not hoping to capture images of the nights sky I am not presently asking much of the mounting drives and alignment. It will be an interesting exercise to align the mounting properly. Before that I need to make fine adjusters for the worms.
I have had to re-direct the paddle cable though the north side of the pier. It was originally going through the west side and the meridian flip risked stretching the cable. I decided to hook the paddle over the north side of the pier instead of from the OTA itself. On the pier it remains easily within reached and always accessible for objects in the southern E-W arc. Nor will the cable need to move with the telescope. 15.00 35.4F ext. 40F internal. Several proms. Still trying to capture afocal snaps of the prominences. A second, smaller plane passed across the sun. By sheer luck I caught another plane without trying or even seeing it! Three planes in one day! I have inverted my afocal snap to avoid passenger vertigo.
Later I went out to have a look at the gibbous Moon which was high in the east. Rather bright and lacking in contrast, with thin high cloud, as I pushed the power up beyond 200x. So I tidied everything away and closed up for the night.
Saturday: Afternoon viewing of the sun through thick mist. NO features visible but another plane crossed the disk.
Click on any image for an enlargement.
*
No comments:
Post a Comment