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Posts Made By: Paul Hyndman

June 5, 2004 05:34 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Topic: H-a Solar image (AR0621 04-Jun-04)

Posted By Paul Hyndman

Aloha!

A few more practice shots before the main event... no time to putz around with full processing
(yard-work and work-work beckons!), but here's a cropped section from the full disk image
(single exposure taken through an AP Traveler, Coronado Solarmax90 w/BF30, 4X TeleVue
Powermate, SBIG STL11K, 1500 pixel swatch cut from the 2600 pixel diameter full-disk):



Need mo' time and much mo' clear sky!

According to the reading of the chicken entrails and tea leaves, Tuesday's weather will be fine...
if it isn't rainy, or foggy, or cloudy! shocked)

Cheers,

Paul


--- http://www.astro-nut.com ---

June 5, 2004 05:40 AM Forum: Coronado-Lunt-DayStar Solar Filters

Topic: H-a Solar image (AR0621 04-Jun-04)

Posted By Paul Hyndman

Aloha!

(My apologies for the duplicate posting. I'm trying to muster up enthusiasm for solar H-a from
the "Dark Side Cellar-Dwellers" in the night-side forums.)

A few more practice shots before the main event... no time to putz around with full processing
(yard-work and work-work beckons!), but here's a cropped section from the full disk image
(single exposure taken through an AP Traveler, Coronado Solarmax90 w/BF30, 4X TeleVue
Powermate, SBIG STL11K, 1500 pixel swatch cut from the 2600 pixel diameter full-disk):



Need mo' time and much mo' clear sky!

According to the reading of the chicken entrails and tea leaves, Tuesday's weather will be fine...
if it isn't rainy, or foggy, or cloudy! shocked)

Cheers,

Paul


--- http://www.astro-nut.com ---

June 8, 2004 10:32 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

One Mo' Venus transit shot (H-alpha)

Posted By Paul Hyndman

Today's Venus transit expedition to Grassy Hill airport in Roxbury CT was fantastic! Low lying clouds
dramatically withdrew just as the sun nudged through the tree-line, greeting us with a spectacular naked-eye
preview (Venus was huge!) BTW, this is the first Venus transit ever seen in the H-a bandwidth!

Joining the Roxbury contingent was a down-to-the-wire decision, as it appeared Marconi Station (Cape Cod,
my first choice) stood a good chance of being socked in with fog. It turned out to be very fortuitous move,
as we had clear sailing for the most part... save a few errant cloud wisps. Cameras clicked away for well over an
hour... I was able to grab 95 full-disk images during the session!

The event was capped off with a group rendezvous to a local diner, where we schmoozed and savored our prosperous
morning while terrorizing the locals (who are all these geeks, and where did they come from?!? shocked)

Here's a shot of the Venue:



I've only processed one of the images so far:



The inset on the right is a cropped subsection from the RAW image in unreduced size. The full-disk image has been processed with Images Plus and Adobe PhotoShop PS using synthesized color (AP Traveler, Coronado SolarMax90 with BF30, SBIG STL11000M camera, and 4X TeleVue Powermate. Taken at medium resolution, to expedite transfer time).

Cheers,

Paul

--- http://www.astro-nut.com ---

PS: This just in form the Marconi Site I almost went to!!! (see below link)



June 9, 2004 02:51 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Venus transit video clip

Posted By Paul Hyndman

Aloha!

I started to crop the catch du jour (or is that catch du yester-
jur?) to plonk them together in movie-clip fashion. These are RAW
(as in totally unprocessed) croppings from the full-disk images and
there are 30 more shots to add, but I gotta' get out and do some
real work now, so thought I'd share this partial clip in it's very
crude stage (AP Traveler, Coroanado SolarMax90 w/BF30, TeleVue 4X
Powermate, SBIG STL11K):

http://www.astro-nut.com/venus-transit.wmv


Cheers,

Paul


June 26, 2004 01:56 AM Forum: Coronado-Lunt-DayStar Solar Filters

Full-disk image for June 21

Posted By Paul Hyndman

Hi All,

Crummy weather, tons of work, and trying to sort out some imaging issues (sigh... no time,
no time, and retirement is soooo many years away!)

But here's a quickie full-disk taken late in the day on June 21 (AP Traveler, SM90,
TeleVue 2x PM, Images Plus):



Paul


July 16, 2004 09:51 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Thank You AP!

Posted By Paul Hyndman

Hi All,

Just a quick note of thanks to Wally and Luke (from AP) for their patience in helping me with a recent problem encountered with my AP600GTO.

A lot of my solar imaging and all of my guided shots in the past were taken via my AP900GTO, while the AP600 was normally relegated to quick setup events and not used for extended, guided imaging. During a recent session I decided to use the smaller mount, but had a devil of a time with the autoguider.

Remembering that AP has tech info posted on their site, I set about to adjust the backlash. A proper balance in RA seemed impossible to attain... anywhere near zero-backlash and I'd get a "Motor Stalled" indication?!? Opening the face-plate revealed that the RA motor was flopping in the breeze (yikes!) Better to call AP before mucking it up more!

Luke assessed my situation and patched me through to Wally, who patiently guided me through the procedure of inspecting the spur gear, removing the motor/encoder assembly, tightening the drive gear (which had loosened from the shaft), orienting and tightening the motor/encoder (which was also quite loose), and putting it all back together so that it actually ran! shocked)

Now for some clear skies and free time to check out this puppy with the Traveler and STL11K on some of those tiny little night time stars!

Thanks again Wally, Luke, and AP!

Paul

--- http://www.astro-nut.com ---

July 17, 2004 04:41 PM Forum: Coronado-Lunt-DayStar Solar Filters

Re: What is a DUAL ETALON

Posted By Paul Hyndman

I believe you may be referring to “double stacking”, the placing of an additional etalon in the optical path. When properly matched, this can "tighten" the pass-band by about 0.2 Angstrom, increasing the contrast and the resolution of surface detail.

You can simply plonk one etalon in front of another, but you may or may not get the same results as ones that have been "tuned" for this application by the manufacturer. The new PST from Coronado has been specifically designed with an adjustment that allows stacking without the need to send it back to the shop.... plonk on an SM40, tweak the adjuster, and blow your socks off!

Paul

--- http://www.astro-nut.com/sun ---


July 23, 2004 10:52 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Solar H-a full-disk & plage exploration (Love that STL11K)

Posted By Paul Hyndman

Hello All (my apologies if you've seen these images on another forum I frequent),

Better never than late (or is that the other way around?!?)

I slapped the updated results of my 21-July-04 solar H-a session onto a web-page. This varies from the earlier version, as I constructed a pseudo-flat to mildly reduce limb darkening, and re-worked the "hairy" limbs/disk transition.

Also included is an unreduced cropping from a super-fast exposure, taken to better define the bright areas of plage coursing below the principal active region (AR652).

If you're still with me here (zzzz-snore-zzzz), you can view the page at :

http://www.astro-nut.com/sun-ha-04jul21.html

Cheers,

Paul

preview:


July 29, 2004 11:25 PM Forum: Solar System Observing

C'mon sun... give us some more action! :D

Posted By Paul Hyndman

Now that AR652 has made a run for the limb, the skies clear here (go figure!)

There were some proms peeking over the eastern limb, so the sun may well be
setting the stage for Act II!

In the meantime, here's a quickie composite of AR654 (now in the center of the solar
disk), and the last belches from AR652. I gathered about 40 or 50 H-a images during
this session, but have not had time to go through them yet (only halfway through with
the downloads!)



AP Traveler, Coronado SM90/BF30, TeleVue 4X PowerMate, SBIG STL 11K, Images Plus used for
the SBIG-FITS-JPEG conversions

Paul

August 16, 2004 12:42 AM Forum: Coronado-Lunt-DayStar Solar Filters

PSTs etal at Stellafane

Posted By Paul Hyndman

Hi All,

This just in from Stellafane... I'll post more as time permits.

Paul