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Showing posts with the label imaging

Testing Full Disk Solar Imaging Telescope

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I 've been working on putting together a very small telescope for capturing the full disk of the sun in the Hydrogen alpha wavelength.  Actually, I've been working on two different solar astronomy projects.  This project should not be confused with building a spectroheliograph which is another project I am working on at the moment.  That spectroheliograph project is much more complex than this one.  I'm still waiting on the optical parts to arrive from France for that project.  In the meantime, I came up with an idea that I had written about here but it wasn't until this morning that I was able to get outside in the sun to test this new setup. When I put together this surprisingly tiny telescope (it is really a small 50mm guide scope), I wasn't sure of the spacing required to get everything to come to focus.  I wasn't even completely sure whether I would have success in capturing the full disk of the sun.  It was possible that I would still be too magnified and

More Aperture Masks

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T he other day, I went out to the shed in the rain to cut out a couple of aperture masks for my small 50mm guide scope.  I want to try to use this guide scope as an imaging scope for imaging the full disk of the sun.  I have previously worked out a potential configuration to do the same using my 72mm ED refractor but I want to compare the two and then continue to use the one that produces the best images.   I need these aperture masks because I need the guide scope's focal ratio to be in the f5 to f6.5 range.  Without these aperture masks, my guide scope is at f3.2 which is too fast for this particular use.  I'm using my Quark Chromosphere solar filter so I need the focal ratio to be between f4 and f8.  I'm thinking that closer to f4 might be better for capturing prominences while closer to f8 will be better for capturing details on the 'surface' of the chromosphere.  This surface isn't really a hard surface though...  it is a surface of plasma gas in the form o

Some Infrared Testing

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I've wanted to get into monochrome infrared imaging for quite a while but this has been one of those projects that keeps getting pushed to the back burner because it wasn't a priority.  Photographing in infrared is challenging with a very unique and distinctive look.  One of the reasons why I seem to keep pushing infrared photography to the back burner is that environmental and weather conditions must be "just right" for infrared imaging to work well.  You need the right weather conditions, the right environmental conditions, and the right scene for infrared photography.  You also need to use a tripod and infrared filters.  Just getting one good image can require many minutes of getting everything just right and then actually capturing a long exposure image. The first step toward getting involved in this type of imaging, however, was to see which of my camera bodies were best for this type of imaging.  I finally accomplished this over the past two days. This wasn'

Homemade Solar Flat Caps

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O ver the past week, in between bouts of lousy health, I have been working on making two homemade solar flat caps.   A flat cap comes in handy when imaging the sun.  The flat cap will diffuse the view for images that are called "flat frames".  These flat caps are placed over the front end of the telescope, temporarily, to shoot these flat frames.  The flat frames are then divided into the stack of normal image frames.   A good flat frame will allow me to create even light across the frame (solar filters create mildly uneven light across the frame).  It will also help to eliminate any dust specks on the image files.   Of course, keeping the camera's sensor clean also eliminates specks and blobs of dust but using a flat frame is another process to effectively smooth out many of these types of defects in the solar image stacks.  This little project called for scrounging up various household materials and some hobby tools.  I always have some thin styrene on hand and that def

Solar Filter Spacing

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M y little project for yesterday morning was to get the spacing adjusted correctly so I can capture the complete full disk of the sun including any prominences that may be extending from the limb in Hydrogen Alpha (Ha) with my current telescope and camera.  This little project was actually a tedious process of trial and error but I succeeded as seen in the photo (at right).   In hindsight, I should have set up my new mount for this project so I didn't have to constantly spend time tracking the sun manually.  Instead, I used a lightweight manual mount that has no slow motion controls because I am still quite sick with either COVID or a bad respiratory cold.  Setting up the new mount would have required more energy than I have right now so I opted for a much smaller mount.  Unfortunately, this smaller mount made this project a bit more tedious than it needs to be.  I was constantly nudging the telescope to keep it in my field of view as the sun slowly moved across the sky.  If I used

Solar Imaging This Time

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I had previously written about a morning of solar observing .  This time, I am going to write about a morning of solar imaging . I was excited to do some imaging because my previous morning of observing-only was exceptional.  The atmospheric conditions (astronomical "seeing" as it is rather unscientifically and rather ridiculously called by the astronomy community) were well above average when I was observing the previous day.  Those kinds of seeing conditions are rare so I was hoping that this morning of imaging would have skies that were just as good.  Sometimes good seeing lasts only an hour, other times it will last for a couple of days.  It was clear on this morning, there was a deep blue sky, and the weather was beautiful.  Above average seeing conditions would be awesome for imaging.   After about a half hour of setup time, running in and out of the house collecting the necessary gear and assembling it all, I was ready to fire up the computer and point the telescope to

White Light Solar Imaging

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I had previously written about solar imaging in Calcium K (CaK).  In that imaging session, I had used one of my usual nice little refractor telescopes (Skywatcher ED 72mm refractor).  This time I am revisiting an imaging session done in white light when I used a really lousy little Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope.  This telescope is the Orion Apex 102mm Maksutov-Cassegrain (uggg...  I really hate a lot of characteristics of all reflector telescopes and this tiny little guy is no exception) .   Seriously, I do not like this little telescope at all.  I was told that a Mak-Cass would be "razor-sharp" yet this Mak-Cass does not provide a crisp image when compared to any of my refractor telescopes...  not even when compared to my sub-$100 70mm achromatic telescope.  It occasionally needs to be tediously collimated so that the mirrors are perfectly aligned otherwise the views are even significantly worse.  Collimating a Mak-Cass is tedious and difficult.  It requires a temperature

Solar Imaging

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W ith the frigid temperatures outside being down in the single digits and sub-zero range everyday, I've been trying to keep busy indoors.  Of course, by saying "I've been trying to keep busy" I am referring to keeping busy in the little bit of spare time I have between health issues, daily physical therapy, daily piano practice, and down time.  Still, I like to accomplish something and learn something each day regardless of whether it is a good health day or bad health day.   The windy frigid temperatures have kept me indoors.  I don't even like going outside to get the mail in this weather so Sheila does that most days!  As I've written in this blog often, my health fares quite poorly in warmer environments (in the 80s and above) but I've been very sensitive to cold environments also as I approach 60 years old (in a few months, in case anyone wants to know).  I simply have zero tolerance for cold environments now.  (Watching the grandkids at the ice rink

Spinal Injury Reminder

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I've often mentioned in this blog about struggling with spinal pain every day.  I mention it often because it is a significant daily pain.  Some days are better than others, however, some days I use a cane.  Some days I can't stand any longer than necessary to move from one spot to another.  Even though the pain stops me in my tracks often or even drops me to my knees, the pain has become a 'normal' every day thing so I actually do think of it as 'normal'.  I understand that and I accept that.  It isn't until I actually see some imaging of my spine that I am reminded of the severity of these injuries and these occasional reminders bring anger to the forefront. Why anger?  I get angry because the Air Force dragged their feet while I was in such intense pain that I could not sleep or think clearly.  Worse yet, they were actually a bit obstinate in acknowledging even my first line-of-duty injury nevermind acknowledging my extensive injuries flaring up in a subs

Smaller Solar Filter for Smaller Telescope

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Until recently, I've been using my usual photography-based cameras for my astrophotography.  I'm not going to get into details here but using those everyday cameras is not ideal for most astrophotography (it's okay for some things but not ideal for most) so I purchased two astronomy cameras.  One camera captures high speed video in color and the other camera captures high speed video in monochrome.  Capturing video provides me with many frames to stack as images in a very short period of time.  Stacking the images provides a lot of benefits including less noise, more details and cumulative exposure.  With these cameras and a fast computer, I can capture hundreds of video frames (which are images) in just a few short seconds.  And that is at 6mp.  Many low end astronomy cameras are less than HD resolution, one or two are at Full HD resolution and my cameras happen to capture larger images at 6mp so I'm happy with that too.     I have two Sony cameras that I use for my ev