Sun Awakens

 October 17, 2020

October 18, 2020

The Sun's ever changing surface is endlessly fascinating.  These photo sets were taken about 24 hours apart and the changes are stunning.  The increased activity on Oct 17th, after weeks of quiet, was eclipsed by multiple eruptions on the 18th.  The prominences are made of plasma which is electrically charged hydrogen and helium that have become unstable and burst from the Sun's photosphere into the outer atmosphere.

Photo Details

October 17-18, 2020

Lunt 60 mm Pressure Tuned Telescope

ZWO ASI178MM 

SharpCap - 8 Bit Mono

Image Stacking in AutoStakkert
Wavelet Filtering in Registax
Final Adjustments in Photoshop

Mars Opposition 2020

 

Mars reached opposition on October 13th and won't be this close again until 2035.  It's amazing what clear skies and moving the subject closer to the lens can do for capturing details.

Photo Details

October 13, 2020

Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount

NexImage10 Camera (Color Images)

Image Acquisition iCap2.4 (Color Images)

Y800 Codec (Color Images)

ZWO ASI178mm (monochrome)

Sharpcap (monochrome)

Image Stacking in AutoStakkert
Wavelet Filtering in Registax
Final Adjustments in Photoshop

Solar Imaging

 

We've had nothing but rain all weekend, but with fantastic conditions a week ago I had plenty to work on with lots of solar images and one good night to capture a long-departed star in the form of Messier 57 (Ring Nebula).

Photo Details

Messier 57

October 2, 2020

Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount

SBIG STF-8300C Camera

Baader MPC Mark III Multi-Purpose Coma Corrector

Skyglow filter

29 subframes at 3 minutes/frame

Total Exposure Time = 1 hour 27 minutes
Image Acquisition in CCDOps
Image Stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image Processing in PhotoShop

Solar Images

October 3, 2020

Lunt 60 mm Pressure Tuned Telescope

ZWO ASI178MM 

SharpCap - 8 Bit Mono

Image Stacking in AutoStakkert
Wavelet Filtering in Registax
Final Adjustments in Photoshop

Solar System Tour

 

We had beautiful weather over Labor Day weekend and it was great timing for a tour of the solar system.  Mars, Jupiter and Saturn on the same night with solar imaging the next morning.  

Photo Details

Mars, Jupiter, Saturn:  September 8, 2020

Sun:  September 9, 2020

Lunt 60 mm Pressure Tuned Telescope

NexImage10 Camera

Image Acquisition iCap2.4

Y800 Codec
Image Stacking in AutoStakkert
Wavelet Filtering in Registax
Final Adjustments in Photoshop

Quiet Sun

 

Not much solar activity last weekend, but it's still fascinating to observe and gave me chance to try out an interference eliminator to reduce the Newton's rings present in earlier captures.  

Photo Details

August 16, 2020

Lunt 60 mm Pressure Tuned Telescope

NexImage10 Camera

Image Acquisition iCap2.4

Y800 Codec
Image Stacking in AutoStakkert
Wavelet Filtering in Registax
Final Adjustments in Photoshop

Solar Activity

It was a busy weekend with lots of great solar activity.  The two images featuring prominences were taken about 24 hours apart and demonstrate just how quickly the sun is changing.

Photo Details

August 8 and 9, 2020

Lunt 60 mm Pressure Tuned Telescope

NexImage10 Camera

Image Acquisition iCap2.4

Y800 Codec
Image Stacking in AutoStakkert
Wavelet Filtering in Registax
Final Adjustments in Photoshop

Solar Activity

The sun is endlessly changing and utterly fascinating.  These images reveal the complexity of the chromosphere reveal structure a such a variety of scales that I seem to find something new every time I look at them.

Photo Details

August 4, 2020

Lunt 60 mm Pressure Tuned Telescope

NexImage10 Camera

Image Acquisition iCap2.4

Y800 Codec
Image Stacking in AutoStakkert
Wavelet Filtering in Registax
Final Adjustments in Photoshop

Solar System Summer

If you've been outside the last few nights, with clear skies, you've probably been as struck as I have with the tight arrangement of the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn.  Last night was as close as they'll get for a while and I was lucky to get some wide angle shots before zooming in on Jupiter and Saturn.  

Photo Details - Jupiter and Saturn

August 1, 2020

Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount

NexImage10 Camera

Image Acquisition iCap2.4

Y800 Codec
Image Stacking in AutoStakkert
Wavelet Filtering in Registax
Final Adjustments in Photoshop

New Sunspot

It was a quiet day for solar prominences, but a new sunspot showed up.  This was my first attempt to photograph sunspot in hydrogen-alpha.  The seeing wasn't great because, well, it's July in Alabama.  In any case, this one was pretty interesting to look at through the eyepiece as there's a lot of activity around the spot.  Though the spot itself appears small relative to the rest of the sun, it's about 71% of the size of Earth.  

Photo Details

July 26, 2020

Coronado PST Telescope

NexImage10 Camera

Image Acquisition iCap2.4

Y800 Codec
Image Stacking in AutoStakkert
Wavelet Filtering in Registax
Final Adjustments in Photoshop