Astronomy Log

I decided to have a look at the Sun today whilst it was out for a change and not cloudy. The weather this summer in 2011 in the UK has been terrible cloudy by day and cloudy by night.

I began by putting my standard Coronado PST on my Manfrotto tripod and put in my 9mm eyepiece, I had a good look around and decided to try and attach my Canon 550D to the telescope and take an image. I had not done this before as I usually image with my PST on my EQ6 mount and then use my Imaging Source DMK21 camera to do the imaging. The only problem with doing this is that the CCD chip is quite small at 640×480 so you can never get the whole of the solar disc in the image, you would need to create a mosiac. This is something you don’t have to do the with the large CCD sensor of a modern DSLR camera.

Anyway, I added my T-ring to my DSLR and attached a 1.25″ nosepiece and my trusty 2.5x Televue Powermate. I managed to get the image in rough focus and take a few images, not expecting much. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had managed to capture prominances in one image and surface solar detail in the other images.

This was not guided and it was clumsily handheld, I did set the 2 second timer on the SLR to try and cut down on the camera shake, as my Manfrotto tripod could barely hold the weight of the PST, DSLR and Powermate.

Prominances layer: 1/125 exposure, auto ISO (it selected ISO1000)
Surface detail layer: 1/1000 exposure, auto ISO (it selected ISO1600)

The two images were then put on top of each other and tweaked in Photoshop.

So there could be some more work to do in order to lower the ISO setting to try and reduce the noise, but otherwise I was very happy considering it was handheld and not guided.

Click on the image below to enlarge it.

Well I went out and purchased a Coronado PST from ScopesNSkies the other week and was itching to try it out, but it seems since I have bought it, it’s now cloudy every day – typical! I did get to put it on my NEQ6 mount and do some imaging one Sunday morning though.

I used my Televue Powermate 2.5x with my DMK21 camera for these shots. The video was stacked using Registax 6.

These images show the Sun in Hydrogen Alpha or Ha. I think for the price of the scope it does not do a bad job. This a basic entry level version of the Coronado PST which can be purchased for just over £450 new.

I was not so happy with the first image, I took two images for this shot and then layered them in Photoshop, but to me they still look a bit fake, perhaps because I added the false colour first to each and then layered them, next time I will layer them first and then flatten the image and add the false colour.

But overall I am quite happy with my first efforts, I have also subsequently learnt how to take flats against the Sun, so I need to subtract the flats next time to remove the dust bunnies. Then I just need more Sun and more free time!

As we have been having some nice summery weather in April, it gives us a great chance to get out in the garden and do some solar imaging.

I have recently had a major equipment change, and sold my LX200 (sad to see you go) and I now have an NEQ6 Pro mount instead, with my trusty Skywatcher ED80 Pro onboard.

Luckily there seems to be a good selection of sunspots now appearing. I tried imaging with a newly purchased QHY5 camera which I intend to use as a guide camera, but I thought I would give it a go on the Sun. It’s ok but not a patch on the DMK21 camera. I was struggling to get 10fps out of the QHY5.

This image was taken with the Mono DMK21 with a UV/IR filter and Baader Solar Continuum filter through the ED80 Pro and I used some cheap Baader Solar Filter paper which was taped to the inside of my scope plastic cover. Even though this solar paper has a scratch in it and a big fingerprint on it, it still manages to produce some great images, at about only 1 inch across. The exposure time is very low in order to get the detail. I then open it up in Photoshop and add some false colour.

My only problem at the moment is that the DMK21 has a lot of ‘dust bunnies’ in it, and I really need to take flats next time to get rid of them. As at the moment I have to get rid of them in Photoshop.

As my previous post mentioned I was amazed to see my partial solar eclipse included at the end of the BBC Look East TV News programme. Mainly because there were so many good images taken by those people who did not get clouded out.

I also sent my image in to the BBC Stargazing Live team, but without any hope of it being shown, as they too had shown some really good images over the 3 episodes.

But when Brian Cox showed just 3 partial solar eclipse images and one of them was mine I was totally amazed, and I even laughed and cheered out loud.

So luckily I was recording the programme, so I have edited that piece out and placed the clip of my partial lunar eclipse images from BBC Stargazing Live on YouTube for you all to watch:

The day of the partial solar eclipse I emailed my photos to various TV channels and web sites. One of those was the local Look East News on BBC1. Most people you send images to do not reply and tell you it is included the programme so you have to just watch and record the programmes in the hope of your image appearing.

I thought it was going to be difficult this year to get my image on TV, as there were a lot of very good partial solar eclipse images taken with a lot of interesting backgrounds, whereas mine was just of the Sun itself.

But I was amazed to see that at the end of Look East they showed a number of images and my image of the partial solar eclipse was included.

So luckily I recorded it, edited it and put it the partial solar eclipse video on YouTube for you all to watch:

I was expecting this morning to be cloudy in Cambridgeshire today, but amazingly the skies started to clear at around 8.30am. I then just had to wait for the Sun to appear from behind the house that backs onto mine, as I was in my back bedroom with the window open taking the photos of the solar eclipse.

I took these images with my Canon 550d with my 300mm lens on a tripod with a remote cable. I also used my homemade solar camera filter.

The images are not that great, but I did like the one that had cloud bands along it which looked a bit like Jupiter.

As the eclipse ended the cloud then came back and it was time to pack away.

I managed to get out on the day of Sunday 10th October to try out a 2″ red type filter I received which looks homemade. It was supposed to be an H-Alpha Solar filter, but it did nothing visually.  So I thought I would try it whilst imaging with my Imaging Source DMK21 camera and see if, with a low enough exposure I could see some prominences, but alas no.

Getting out in the daytime also enabled me to try out my 2.5x Televue Powermate which I have just purchased. I added it onto my Skywatcher ED80 Pro, together with the Televue Powermate, Baader Solar Continuum filter and a simple homemade Baader Solar Film filter and my DMK21 camera I managed to get this image.

This has been recorded using the ICapture software provided by The Imaging Source and then processed in Registax 5 and then tweaked in Photoshop.

After several days of cloud and rain, the clouds parted and I managed to get a shot of the current sun with its sunspots.

These are recorded as sunspots 1092 and 1093 from left to right.

This is not a great image, as it’s a bit blurred. Taken with my homemade DSLR solar filter on my camera using my 300mm lens.

I managed to do a bit of imaging today as the Sun was out all day. I went and purchased a sheet of A4 Baader Solar Filter paper from Green Witch the other day, they were the cheapest place I could find, plus I got my SPA discount as well. It also gave me my first chance to visit them in Dry Drayton.

Anyway, I produced a couple of solar filters for my LX200 and my ED80 Pro from the paper sheet so was dying to try them out (which was a nightmare trying to cut, as I couldn’t stop my fingers leaving fingerprints on the paper, plus you need to remember to remove a really thin piece of plastic that is attached to the filter paper).

Both worked really well, I have also just purchased a 2nd hand DMK21 camera, which is so much better than my SPC900 webcam, which I about to sell. So imaging with this was fun as the more practice I get on the DMK21 the better. I also used my Baader Solar Continuum filter which I have had for ages but never really got to use as I did not think that the SPC900 gave enough brightness of the object to use a dark green filter, but the DMK21 handles it with ease as you have a lot more control over your gain, exposure and gamma settings.

The great thing was that I was able to record granulation on my images, something I could never do with the SPC900 webcam, maybe it’s the Baader Solar Filter paper that made it possible, but I think it was really the DMK21 camera.

I processed them all in Registax 5 and then added some false colour in Fireworks. The distant image was taken with a Skywatcher ED80 Pro and the close-up shots with my 10″ LX200.

Writing this blog post from actually inside the observatory today, now I have sorted out my internet access, by using a powerline adaptor which passes the network data through your home electrical wires and is a lot more stable than wireless. especially if you are any distance away from the house.

Did not expect to do any imaging today, just opened the roof to check on the Sun and see if there was any activity, and there was, even better than when I looked a couple of weeks ago.

Here are my images, the enlarged images of the sunspots were taken on my 10″ LX200 with a glass solar filter, using an SPC900 webcam and then stacking in registax, one in colour and one in black and white.

The large shot of the Sun below was taken via my Canon 450D SLR using a Televue 2x Barlow on my 80mm refractor with a Mylar paper solar filter.