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Tuesday: 43F, grey, wet and miserable. Literally everything is covered in heavy condensation!
Wednesday: Mid 40sF and grey. I refitted the inner, upstanding skirt of recycled plastic, lawn edging with about 100 screws. Most of the time the inner skirt is not necessary. However the rubber, outer skirt flaps noisily in windy conditions.
I am tempted to see if warming the plastic with the new [recycled] hair drier would allow it to be straightened. The plastic is very stiff and more wavy than I would have liked. Causing occasional, outward waves which rub against the rubber skirt and increase dome, turning friction. The dome is sixteen sided and rotates over an eight sided building. Leading to occasional conflict between flats and points.
Thursday:
45F and grey again. Just as well I replaced the inner skirt yesterday
because a storm is forecast for overnight tonight. It is twenty years
since the last really big storm. When we lost a quarter of our roof. I
went ahead and replaced the whole thing after that. Working alone, as
usual. I built two dormers and installed thick insulation at the same
time.
I have discovered a [long] YouTube [streaming] video by Steven Tang. A master of solar image processing with decades of experience and frequent accolades. There is lots of padding but some vital detail on bringing out out the hidden detail in the final image. His relaxed and natural approach using the same, free software is quite startling to one who has tried and failed miserably to obtain similar results.
I'm afraid I found the other software help videos too demanding of my limited memory. It's a shame I can't just install more RAM and a nice big SSD. So I shall just have to note the times on the video when he achieved his magical results. Throughout the video he as doing simple things I had never known existed in the software.
Interestingly, he stated that the Celestron, C6R 150mm, f/8, achromatic refractor was an ideal solar instrument. Particularly when used with a Daystar Quark for H-alpha. I am using an older CR150HD which lacks a collimatable objective cell but is quite similar. His recommendation of larger apertures for high resolution H-a imaging was good to hear form an expert.
Daystar's reputation for quality control of the Quark has taken a battering on the forums. With some very experienced solar imagers returning up to five before they received a properly working example. This is completely unacceptable at the very considerable purchase price.
As an occasional distant, online customer what chance would I have of receiving a satisfactory example? One which actually performs to claimed specification? The considerable delay in tuning is a considerable downer for one used to instant, live tuning with my PST etalon.
On the same subject, I have no idea if I have a good, average or poor PST etalon. Bought secondhand, with a dead ITF, it was never really used as a PST. So I can only judge the results with my 6" refractor. The "live" visual view is usually very pleasing. Particularly with the binoviewers. While the image on the monitor screen from both ZWO cameras has been excellent despite the unbelievable scale. Only my lack of skill with the processing software denies me the final images I desire and know already exist in the frames of the video. If only I could bring it out!
Friday 6th Nov: 46F. The dome is still attached after last night's wind. I shall have to check the rainwater, collection containers. I usually park the shutters facing south but rotated them into the promised wind. I can't make drainage gutters because the bottom of the base ring runs on the big support and rotation rollers. I am still looking at optimum waterproofing options for the entire dome.
Saturday 7th: 43F. Early sun, then cloudy and then clear for a while. Captured some videos of the area of the disk with dark filaments showing on Gong H-a. The nearby proms on the limb were too small and dim to be worth the effort. The AVIs could not be found by Registax or AS!3 [Autostakkert.] So I returned to AS!2. I could clearly see them on the screen under Desktop>SharpCap Captures but couldn't Select, Open or drag and drop! Then PhotoFiltre7 and iMPPG couldn't find the resulting stills! The sky went very dark at 1pm so I retired for lunch.
I have discovered a [long] YouTube [streaming] video by Steven Tang. A master of solar image processing with decades of experience and frequent accolades. There is lots of padding but some vital detail on bringing out out the hidden detail in the final image. His relaxed and natural approach using the same, free software is quite startling to one who has tried and failed miserably to obtain similar results.
I'm afraid I found the other software help videos too demanding of my limited memory. It's a shame I can't just install more RAM and a nice big SSD. So I shall just have to note the times on the video when he achieved his magical results. Throughout the video he as doing simple things I had never known existed in the software.
Interestingly, he stated that the Celestron, C6R 150mm, f/8, achromatic refractor was an ideal solar instrument. Particularly when used with a Daystar Quark for H-alpha. I am using an older CR150HD which lacks a collimatable objective cell but is quite similar. His recommendation of larger apertures for high resolution H-a imaging was good to hear form an expert.
Daystar's reputation for quality control of the Quark has taken a battering on the forums. With some very experienced solar imagers returning up to five before they received a properly working example. This is completely unacceptable at the very considerable purchase price.
As an occasional distant, online customer what chance would I have of receiving a satisfactory example? One which actually performs to claimed specification? The considerable delay in tuning is a considerable downer for one used to instant, live tuning with my PST etalon.
On the same subject, I have no idea if I have a good, average or poor PST etalon. Bought secondhand, with a dead ITF, it was never really used as a PST. So I can only judge the results with my 6" refractor. The "live" visual view is usually very pleasing. Particularly with the binoviewers. While the image on the monitor screen from both ZWO cameras has been excellent despite the unbelievable scale. Only my lack of skill with the processing software denies me the final images I desire and know already exist in the frames of the video. If only I could bring it out!
Friday 6th Nov: 46F. The dome is still attached after last night's wind. I shall have to check the rainwater, collection containers. I usually park the shutters facing south but rotated them into the promised wind. I can't make drainage gutters because the bottom of the base ring runs on the big support and rotation rollers. I am still looking at optimum waterproofing options for the entire dome.
Saturday 7th: 43F. Early sun, then cloudy and then clear for a while. Captured some videos of the area of the disk with dark filaments showing on Gong H-a. The nearby proms on the limb were too small and dim to be worth the effort. The AVIs could not be found by Registax or AS!3 [Autostakkert.] So I returned to AS!2. I could clearly see them on the screen under Desktop>SharpCap Captures but couldn't Select, Open or drag and drop! Then PhotoFiltre7 and iMPPG couldn't find the resulting stills! The sky went very dark at 1pm so I retired for lunch.
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