26.12.2021 Imaging.

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Sunday 26th 18F air temperature. Snow lying. Hard frost.

09.25 [CET] Set up for solar imaging. Dome at 21F inside. The rubber skirt was frozen to the base ring timber. Making dome rotation impossible until manually freed all around. The  dew bands have risen from 18F to 54F so far. No sunrise yet. Cloth cladding inside of the dome frosted over. I am using fleece gloves with fingertips cut off. Still bitterly cold on my fingers when typing!

09.35 Sun has risen but is completely blocked by the absent neighbour's 8m/25' hedge! This is going to take some time to get a clear view!

10.00 Back indoors to put on my salopettes and warm up. The shadow of the hedge is still solid on the lower half of the dome. Sunlight grazing across the top of the dome. Patchy ground mist is rising. With the the present sun's path I may not have a clear sun until it reaches the south.

10.29 First image despite dewed optics. D-ERF, objective, etalon and 1.25x GPC all dewed.  Dismantled and used the hairdrier. Tree now blocking the view! Dew band reached 72F.

 

12.29 I have spent the whole morning trying to achieve sharp focus with visible H-a detail. Tried re-tuning the etalon dozens of times. No improvement. Tried checking the focal point and adjusting the position of the etalon. Tried lots of capture frame sizes. 

Changed the settings repeatedly in AS!3. I removed the etalon and filters and examined the image of a distant tree with an eyepiece. It seemed okay.

Finally, I tried the Lacerta 2" wedge for white light. 2.6x GPC. Left the D-ERF in place. Image heavily cropped.

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