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Sunday 14th.
A very large box has arrived. I had been waiting for it for over four months. Waiting for the very first, brand new telescope I have ever bought. My first new, commercial telescope in seventy five years. Well, strictly speaking, I started building telescopes in my early-mid teens. So you could say this is my first new telescope in 60 years of passionate [obsessive-compulsive] interest in astronomy and telescopes in particular. In fact I prefer telescopes to most kind of astronomy.
Within the two large, nested boxes, was a large, metal, storage case. No unboxing videos for me. I wanted to see why I had been waiting impatiently for all of those months. The telescope was bigger, but much shorter than I had imagined. Strangely, it was probably ten times the weight I had imagined. It actually felt as if it was constructed of solid metal. Somewhere between solid steel and solid aluminium.
Thankfully it was cosmetically flawless. At least to my eyes. A few greasy fingerprints on the completely pointless "dewshield." Which provided little protection against dew but looked the part.
Nor were there any hideous design flaws which an obsessive-compulsive, lifetime telescope maker would see as a deal breaker.
There were no instructions. Just a large card telling the buyer to search for a URL online. No joy. The supposed "Manual-Instructions download did not exist. A bit of online digging [with the usual, rushed typos] produced enough information not to be considered "armed and dangerous."
I quickly mounted the shiny new "lump" onto a Sirui gimbal mounting on a Manfrotto carbon fibre tripod. The results were disappointing to say the least. It is true that I have not done much visual observing in H-alpha. I have become a committed "imager."
I tried a range of eyepieces. Despite persisting I saw little more than a plain red disk with a few tiny prominences. More Google homework was obviously needed. The sharpness of the proms was a good sign.
I watched several YouTube videos on the particular telescope in question. It seems I was not making any obvious mistakes. I added a better star diagonal and could see fleeting glimpses of surface detail. This was not what I paid for. Nor waited all those months.
Later that afternoon I dragged "The Lump" back outside and found the sun. Steadily the surface detail popped into view. I was "learning to see" again. It was several years since I had used an eyepiece in deep red, H-alpha light.
The sun sank lower and the trees beckoned. So I moved along the drive. To where a gate provided a clearer view. Things kept improving as I ran back and forth to the house. Collecting more eyepieces to try. I even tried my binoviewer but couldn't reach focus with the star diagonal in place.
Eventually the sun sank low enough for a straight view through the binoviewer. No star diagonal eating up the focal length. I tried various GPCs and pairs of eyepieces. As I constantly refocused and retuned the huge, brass pump knob the sun suddenly snapped into clarity. A pair of 20mm Meade 4000 Plossls and the 1.6x GPC had finally provided the magic.
I was utterly mesmerised! My usual dinner preparation time went by as I sat on my little chair and stared and stared. The detail and its sharpness were mind blowing! Filaments were so finely engraved that they could be clearly discerned as stranded. The sunspots were inky black and their surroundings "as clear as day."
All on an apparent disk size I would have considered " rather modest" in diameter compared to my usual field of view. Where I would struggle to keep a single sunspot in the ROI on the monitor. So as not to miss anything nearby. Like a filament or flaring. Or magnetic bristles.
Dinner time passed and I was still glued to my chair as the sun sank behind the trees. Twice I had moved further along the drive. To get the last dregs of the sun through gaps in the hedge before it finally sank out of sight.
Today's task is to find a way to use the binoviewer with a star diagonal. I need the comfort. I am much too old to be tipping my head back at 50ยบ! A cushion for the chair would be good too. Then there is the matter of getting the camera attached. To see what it can really do on a full, solar disk.
In the end I added the 2x GPC [Williams 2x Barlow nosepiece] to the nosepiece of the T-S 1.25" star diagonal. This provided plenty of outward focuser travel but at the expense of higher powers. Easily solved by using a pair of 26mm eyepieces instead of the 20mm. Which work fine with the binoviewers looking straight through the focuser. I have a pair of 32mm and 40mm should I need lower powers.
The next step is to insert the ZWOASI174MM camera. To see where that comes to focus. It is 82F in the shade out of doors and getting hotter. Which means I feel very hot when I am exposed to the full sun.
I need to see the sun's image on a big screen as I capture it. 50/100 frames. No drive. 88fps. I'd had better fix the new telescope to the mounting somewhere. So I can be in the shade of the dome and see the 27" monitor. I'll be back!
It is hot and cloudy this afternoon. 80F. After giving up for a while I can't even centre on the sun. No brightness means no shadows to guide me.
18.08 Brief clearing through thin cloud. Processing more gentle in ImPPG. 800x800 in SharpCap. 100fps. Gain 0 Exposure 2.25ms. 50/500 stacked in AS!3.
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