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Saturday 23rd 40F, almost clear skies. Moon high in the west. I took a few snaps with digital zoom on my G9, Leica 50-200mm. Cropped and sharpened.
9.30. I plan to do some imaging now the tree shadows are off the dome.
Ridiculously soft images. The usual problem. The iStar objective is dewed over internally. I wasted five minutes with the hair drier on the cell and main tube. To produce no visible change. I have connected an Astrozap dew band to warm the main tube behind the cell.
10.30 44F in the shade. Now it it has clouded over. Full power and 57F after five minutes? Now cooling! Connected a Kendrick. From 43F to 59F in seconds and warming rapidly. 68F. 78F. 84F. Dew disk shrinking to half aperture.
10.40 Cloud clearing. Not a single, worthwhile image so far. Moved the thermometer sensor back to the Astrozap. 84F. 86F. 88F. 89F. The Astrozap seems okay now.
Repeatedly retuning the PST etalon and re-focusing but the image just will not sharpen. A!3 and ImPPG can't improve things. Dew disk has shrunk to 2". 93F on both bands. Image improving.
11.07 [CET] 88F & 115F on the dew heaters. 2" thinning dew disk. First image. Still dreadful!
11.23 First recognisable AR2886. More cloud.
11.40 Thin cloud continues to tease.
12.00 Double checked focus point with and without protective filters. 330mm from backplate. Confirmed PST etalon at 200mm inside focus. 130mm from backplate surface. Experimenting with rotation of BF relative to the etalon. Retuning and tilting. Cloud still teasing. Occasional improvement in clarity. Increasing thermal agitation. I keep processing captures but no real improvement.
12.12 Still adjusting.
12.22 Fitted PST BF to capture the large prom on the deep SE limb. The blue sky is white.
12.40 Too much cloud!
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