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Saturday morning I was up early so went out to the observatory to try doing some solar imaging. The instruments were dew covered on the outside after a cooler [50F] night.
The seeing was more steady than I am used to but the sun was devoid of visible features. The Vixen 90mm provided some nice, even granulation after the Wavelet treatment in Registax. The 180mm not so much.
H-alpha was lacking in anything interesting to lock onto. I toured around the limb several times using the drives. Only one small, pale cloud pretended to be a tiny prom. Though I could not draw it out with added gain or longer exposures.
The trapdoor is already far easier to lift and lower even with the crude mock-up still in place from yesterday. There is far too much friction. Which dominates the movement in both directions. Even this rough trial suggests an improved set-up will provide almost effortless, raising and lowering.
After an hour of trying to image, the sun clouded over at about 0900. So I am taking a break. Then I found other things to do rather than spend the day waiting endlessly for the sun to clear. I had a go at clearing the observatory floor of tools and junk. I am still thinking furiously about a far more serious screen. That would mean finding space for a keyboard too.
Even on a 4" high box the 15.6" laptop screen is still too small for comfort. It is forcing me to hunch over it while wearing much stronger reading glasses. [+1.5] My main problem is legibility of tiny script. Back indoors I can sit well back and relaxed while using my 28" screen with much weaker glasses. [+1] This makes a huge difference in comfort.
I do have a very old, Philips 24" screen but it only has a serial port. What is really preventing me from using it was the major upgrade when I bought the Samsung 28." The picture quality difference was really obvious.
The laptop presently sits on a shelf mounted on the pier. Not ideal to avoid vibration after going to so much trouble to build a completely isolated, 14' high pier. I can literally jump up and down on the obs. floor without a high magnification image visibly trembling on the laptop screen. This is with a solar image probably 3' across if it were all visible. Instead of just a small chunk in the SharpCap capture window. Normally I only have to press the start recording button but even that may still set up vibrations. Once started I can't safely touch the keyboard again until the capture sequence is over.
My next dilemma is about using a mobile computer trolley instead. There isn't a lot of floor space around the huge pier. If I build a trolley I might want a bigger screen instead of "just" a 24". I would then sit facing east or west rather than always south on the pier. Which means I'll need improved screen shading during solar imaging. Though this could be considerably improved if I paint the inside of the obs. dark.
The present, light coloured, untreated plywood walls scatter a lot of sunlight. Which greatly reduces screen contrast. A larger screen could still be fixed safely onto the pier, of course. But then the AWR paddle needs space for typing. And, a wireless mouse. And a keyboard. And a mouse mat. And somewhere for a notepad. And somewhere to safely put down a camera or eyepiece! And, and, and.
Then there's my clear, plastic, accessory storage containers with their white, snap-on lids! A poor colour choice, in retrospect, but they were dirt cheap in a supermarket special offer. At night they are easy to find by red light but very awkward to open without having my lap or a firm surface to work on. Great protection for the stored equipment but not without its own drawbacks.
Sunday: Early sunshine was soon hidden by a solid overcast. Possible sunny periods? I'm not holding my breath!
Even on a 4" high box the 15.6" laptop screen is still too small for comfort. It is forcing me to hunch over it while wearing much stronger reading glasses. [+1.5] My main problem is legibility of tiny script. Back indoors I can sit well back and relaxed while using my 28" screen with much weaker glasses. [+1] This makes a huge difference in comfort.
I do have a very old, Philips 24" screen but it only has a serial port. What is really preventing me from using it was the major upgrade when I bought the Samsung 28." The picture quality difference was really obvious.
The laptop presently sits on a shelf mounted on the pier. Not ideal to avoid vibration after going to so much trouble to build a completely isolated, 14' high pier. I can literally jump up and down on the obs. floor without a high magnification image visibly trembling on the laptop screen. This is with a solar image probably 3' across if it were all visible. Instead of just a small chunk in the SharpCap capture window. Normally I only have to press the start recording button but even that may still set up vibrations. Once started I can't safely touch the keyboard again until the capture sequence is over.
My next dilemma is about using a mobile computer trolley instead. There isn't a lot of floor space around the huge pier. If I build a trolley I might want a bigger screen instead of "just" a 24". I would then sit facing east or west rather than always south on the pier. Which means I'll need improved screen shading during solar imaging. Though this could be considerably improved if I paint the inside of the obs. dark.
The present, light coloured, untreated plywood walls scatter a lot of sunlight. Which greatly reduces screen contrast. A larger screen could still be fixed safely onto the pier, of course. But then the AWR paddle needs space for typing. And, a wireless mouse. And a keyboard. And a mouse mat. And somewhere for a notepad. And somewhere to safely put down a camera or eyepiece! And, and, and.
Then there's my clear, plastic, accessory storage containers with their white, snap-on lids! A poor colour choice, in retrospect, but they were dirt cheap in a supermarket special offer. At night they are easy to find by red light but very awkward to open without having my lap or a firm surface to work on. Great protection for the stored equipment but not without its own drawbacks.
Sunday: Early sunshine was soon hidden by a solid overcast. Possible sunny periods? I'm not holding my breath!
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